I was curious that my iPhone accessories are 50% costlier than my Android phone accessories. I thought that Apple Product accessaries are made of a different material, and the raw materials for the accessories are superior for iPhone cases.So I have narrow down my search and selecting a brand that sells iPhone and Android accessories and could still see the iPhone accessories are costlier regardless of the same raw materials and similar qualities. The only difference is the case size, but the cases’ size should not be accounted for a 50% increase in product cost in our case iPhone case.
So what has caused the price increases of Apple products’ cover but cheap and average price range for Android phone cases? It has been revealed that there is a principle behind it, and it is called the contrast principle. When a product is under a structured sequence of price variations, customers will not question accessories’ prices. For example, when we buy Iphone, the Iphone would be expensive, and customers know that the iPhone brand is costly compared to other product offerings. When a customer buys an expensive iPhone, the accessories will look considerably smaller even though the iPhone accessories are costly. Marketers know this trick, and they have aligned their price for iPhone accessories according to Iphone’s original prices and claim more margin than the other mobile product accessories.
Let’s understand the contrast principle
When each small price seems pretty when compared to the already determined much larger one, in our case Iphone is expensive, and all the accessories for iPhone would be perceived as less expensive. Marketers would follow the contrast principle, create a structure of situations, Place our product price from high to low, Explain the product price from high to low, and sell the accessories as part of expensive product without any objections
Why do we need contrast principle ?
When we go to the supermarket, all the high priced items are at the higher stack, and the desired price items are at the exact place from where we can grab. When a customer sees a price from low to high, he sees friction created on his mind. If we don’t notice it, the fear will be evolved as a flight response. When there are fear and flight response, customers would want to move from the situation we have created unknowingly. To overcome this, if we explain our expensive offerings first, customers will somewhat settle with the lower price, and there is a chance of negotiation terms with the higher-priced items.
How do we design a contrasting principle?
We thoroughly analyze our offerings and create a structured situational matrix for customer interactions. When we explain the product offerings, we present the highly-priced item as our first offering. Our marketing strategies have content about this expensive product, and we market as our flagship offering for our onboarding customers. We are prepared for the resistance and identify the right time to bring in the sequence offerings less expensive than the flagship offering.
Why contrast principle is not a Marketing manipulation
Contrast principles are used all over the world by marketers and sales professionals. The contrast principle is virtually impossible to detect. We can increase our sales by 100% without manipulating customers but replacing the product offering sequence. Customers will have their freedom to decide what they want, even with the contrast principle.
When to use the Contrast Principle ?
Contrast principles can be used anywhere where we are expecting sales to happen. We may not be to use the contrast principle with one product offering. Hence we need to create more than one product to make use of contrast principles. Suppose if we have one product that we are offering, we can create an accessory for this product and add the accessory as part of the product. Hence the based product becomes less expensive compare to the based product with accessories
Summary
We as a human kind wants a freedom of choice.It is Marketers and Sales professionals to create the contrast principles as part of their offerings. The contrast principle is compelling. Example, We have two products, one with slightly different than the other product. Customers will see the products as two completely different products. Customers will not object to the same product’s small changes with variations, and they will feel they have more freedom to choose what they want. The contrast principle helps in creating this good perception of freedom of choice.