Product pricing should be an buy jeeter cartridges online first part of your overall go to market product strategy, however again and again I see companies leaving this to the end and in some cases simply guessing. There seems to be a mystique around pricing a product that often scares companies into a panic and this is where mistakes get made that can cost thousands of dollars down the road. The mystery of margin, program, net, gross, delivered, FOB etc can leave you feeling overwhelmed and therefor uninterested.
Well; not to worry. You can put away your taro cards and cancel your appointment at the physic. We are going to take the mystery out of pricing by showing you:
1. MSRP – Determining your manufactures suggested retail price is critical to the rest of your pricing strategy. Every retailer, buyer, distributor and etailer will want to know this number as they want to remain competitive with the market. Before simply applying a 6 or 7 multiple to your cost in order to gain your retail I suggest you do some due diligence on your competition. What are the other items in this category selling for? Is your product better, worse or the same as what is on the market. Does your product have features that separate it from the competition and can bring a premium retail price or is it a value offering from the competition and needs to be priced lower. To bring a bit of clarity to this subject let’s create a scenario. Let’s say your company has created a new smart phone case and you need to establish a base MSRP.
2. Raw Cost – This is the number your company pays for a fully packaged, production quality product at the manufacture. Please note that a production product is not a hand made sample or one of a few sample products run from your factory. A production product is a product pulled directly off the production line ready to go to a retailer. It is this cost you are after.
3. Raw landed cost – This is the number your company pays for a fully packaged, production quality product including the cost of bringing the product to the US if it is manufactured overseas or to your warehouse if it is manufactured somewhere different then where you will be warehousing it. How much should you factor into your product cost to land your product here in the US from overseas? As a rough estimate only, you can take $4700 / the units of product that fit into a 40ft container. This will give you a rough idea of how much you should add to your unit cost to have a complete landed raw cost. Please keep in mind this is for rough estimates only, you should replace $4700 with your actual cost when you are receiving logistics quotes. Ex. If your the raw cost of your product at the port in China is $1.47 and you can fit 10,000 units in a 40ft container your cost per unit to flow the product to the US would be $.47. This would make your Raw Landed Cost on this item $1.94. If your product is manufactured in Wisconsin and your are bringing them to your warehouse in Texas you would simply substitute the $4700 for the cost of shipping the product from WI to TX.
4. MAP Pricing – MAP or Minimum Advertised Price is a policy used by some manufactures to create stability in advertised pricing of their product. It means that no retailer or etailer can list or advertise a MAP’d product under the MAP price set by the manufacture. Brick and Mortar stores can sell these items or even list these items in store for any price they choose as long as they do not advertise them for less than MAP. This sound like a pretty good deal and you are probably saying to yourself, “Why wouldn’t I create a MAP policy?” Here are a couple things to consider when making this decision; 1. Once you establish a MAP policy and distribute it to your retailers you must treat each retailer the same irrespective of their volume. This means if you stop supplying a small retailer because they violated your MAP 3 times and this is clearly stated in your policy then you would also have to stop supplying a large big box chain if they did the same or risk a huge law suit, 2. Some retailers simply don’t want to do business with products that are MAP priced as it creates issues with their marketing plans.
5. What is gross margin and how to determine it – Gross margin is the difference between your selling price and your raw, landed product cost. It is generally expressed as both a percentage and a dollar amount. To determine the dollar amount the formula is SP-Cost. To gain your gross margin % you would use the following formula formula: (SP-Cost)/SP. SP = sell price. If your selling price is $79.99 and your raw landed cost is $27.5 the equation for gross margin dollars would look like ($79.99-$27.5). Your gross margin dollars would be $52.49. To gain your gross margin percent the equation would look like this ($79.99-$27.50)/$79.99. Your gross margin for this item is 65.62%.
6. What are program costs – Program costs can be considered any additional cost the retailer is going to ask you to be responsible for paying. These costs should be built into your cost structure prior to quoting. Not taking the time to understand these costs of build them into your cost structure prior to quoting pricing to a retailer is a recipe for disaster. Your company must be able to incur these costs and still produce a healthy margin.