Yarrrrr!! A tale of teenage morals.
Many moons ago, (well, about 20 years) I worked on a sunday at a local computer fair, helping out a mate of my dad's on a stall. He sold PC gear, blank floppy disks and a bit of software.

Now, in those days, there was loads of shareware knocking about that a lot of stalls would either give away or sell for the price of the disk it was on. One week, he came up with a little experiment - he got two boxes of shareware disks, both containing the same disks, labelled one with "shareware - free" and one labeled "discount PC software £3 a disk". The one selling the disks for three quid emptied in about half an hour, the "free" box was still half full at the end of the day.

"Right", says he, "you know about all this disk-copying lark, don't you? Copy as many disks as you can before next week and I'll split the profit with you"
"No", says I "someone has worked hard on that software and wants to give it away, it's completely immoral to sell what should be free, you're screwing over the little guy!" I might have even given a Wolfie Smitth stile clenched fist salute at this point.
"Fine", says he "I'll work it out myself"

Net result? He drives a Bentley, I drive a mondeo I paid £600 for two years ago.

If he asked me to do it now, I'd jump at the chance.
(ScousersPet, Mon 11 Jul 2011, 11:54, 11 replies)

A friend
of mine started a company making budget drum microphones aimed at the 'semi-professional' and charged about 20 quid for them, as opposed to the 150+ quid that the only real alternative company charged.
He applied for a Princes Trust grant, and was told that his product was too cheap, and if he wanted the grant that he would have to put the price up.
He didn't like that idea, as he was aiming at the lower market, so he simply changed the plug on the end that comes out of the drum to a more expensive one and charged 48 quid for it. It was exact same model as the 20 quid one, but with a slightly (about 50p more) more expensive plug.
The 48 quid ones sold out, week on week, and he hardly sold any of the 20 quid ones (until he changed the plug on them of course).

People are strange.
(dchurch bah, Mon 11 Jul 2011, 12:09, closed)

Not really - it's a sensible business plan that appeals to people's distrust of tat.
However lazy it is, people tend to think that more expensive = better quality.

CF Lady Diana's funeral (though the mentality is slightly different) - canny florists had two wreaths for sale - a £20 one and a £40 one.

Well - if you're really grieving of course you'll take the £40 one.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 11 Jul 2011, 12:15, closed)

Indeed.
In a strangely ironic way, it was his (misguided) mistrust of the their business acumen that showed this to be the case.
(dchurch bah, Mon 11 Jul 2011, 12:34, closed)

As long as you take out the extended warranty it doesn't matter which one you buy.

( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Mon 11 Jul 2011, 13:55, closed)

There's a lovely story I heard about generic drug manufacturers in India.
When Indian firms started to produce copycat drugs in bulk, they'd sell them for only a shade over cost price - maybe 10% of the price of the branded version. Some of them were lifesaving; but they just weren't shifting.

The reason turned out to be that people were so used to the drugs being hyper-expensive, they reasoned that anything that cheap had to be ineffective. Once the manufacturer tripled the price, they started selling.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 11 Jul 2011, 14:15, closed)

Got to love that price/quality relationship.
How else do you explain t-shirts with unidentifiable logos on them that sell for £90 in Camden?
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Mon 11 Jul 2011, 12:17, closed)

Gullible trust-fund goths
That's how I explain it.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Mon 11 Jul 2011, 12:35, closed)

Morons exist.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 11 Jul 2011, 12:41, closed)

That's going on my next £90 T-shirt.

( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 11 Jul 2011, 12:42, closed)

Conspicuous consumption

(McChinaman banned, Mon 11 Jul 2011, 12:46, closed)

Limiting your own target audience a bit, though.
If you drive around in an Aston Martin everyone's going to know you're minted, but don one of those t-shirts and only Hoxton hipsters will know how much you paid for it. Then again, maybe they're the only people you're trying to impress anyway.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Mon 11 Jul 2011, 16:10, closed)