small business advice

[hamzo]

my business advice for everybody is that in order to get costumers a business owner must not give high prices if a person wants to win $1 and another$5 in my opinion the one who wants to win $1 would have better income

[silent_thunder]

What about the quality of $! guy?? If he can match the quality of $5 guy then he can improve!! still many people go for quality over price, not everyone is flocking towards china

[Nazreen]

People often makes judgments of quality based on the price of the items. This is often the case, the more expensive the item, the better the quality thus the saying You get what you pay for.

So the question still remains, would you buy the cheapest product or service available? I think this depends on the product or service that you're buying. If you're buying the services of a babysitter, would you negotiate for the lowest price available? I think not because people have perceptions of fairness - they work less if they're paid less and work harder if paid more.

But if it's a product that you don't mind if the quality is not that good like pens or any disposable items then I think that buying a cheaper one would be better.

[Fergal]

As Nazreen says it really does depend a lot on the product or service. It is not always true to say that the lowest price business will always be the more profitable one. For example you can find free alternatives to Microsoft's product. Open Office (http://www.openoffice.org/) is a free software package that competes directly with Microsoft Office, yet Microsoft still makes huge profits.

It depends on how you differentiate your business, from a marketing perspective. You can position your business as the lowest cost option or you can position your business as a high cost high value option. You can profit from selling Skodas or Porsches. It all comes down to using marketing tools to position your product or service as being either high price or low price in the minds of your target market.

[prettysue]

Hi everyone :)

In my personal experience, I usually go for the quality even if I pay more especially on purchasing clothes (but not those so expensive ones). But there are small needed things that doesn't have to be that branded like bags. I would prefer buying some local brand bags than Louis Vuitton that will cost you thousands of dollars. It is sure that its quality is guaranteed best but I don't think I will use only 1 bag for 2 years or 3. I think brands like these are just for a higher status quo.

[Nazreen]

That's a very good example prettysue. With regards to clothes and shoes, I would also put more priority on quality than the price. The very cheap clothes and shoes only last for a few weeks and after that, the color might have already faded or they're already torn. I don't buy the expensive, branded clothes though because in my opinion, you're just buying the name. I usually go for those trusted brands that are not too expensive and only go for Louis Vuitton when they have a sale.

Now going back to the main topic, we can apply the Louis Vuitton example to this. Everyone would prefer a branded bag bought on sale for $500 than the same bag that's selling for $1000. That's the reason why I only buy branded products during a sale. But if the same bag is being sold for $10, better double check the product because there's a high chance that it's a fake.

[sp500trading]

Do you think the ratio is going to workout

[descorpio]

We should always be aware of the fake products. But we can easily identify them if its available in the local market with a cheaper price. Then it is safe not to buy those products. But how to identify the fake, if it is sold for the same price with the same brand name in a big retail shop? So the manufacturers must be very much careful in this matter.

[Nazreen]

Welcome back descorpio! There's often a way to distinguish fakes from the real ones. Usually the fake ones have lower quality as can be seen by the stitching on the bags or clothes. The materials used might also be of lower quality. But there are instances when it's hard to distinguish a fake from a real one. In these types of situations, you can always contact their company's customer service staff or send them an email. They'll be more than happy to tell you how to distinguish between the two and avoid being cheated.

[Fergal]

...But how to identify the fake, if it is sold for the same price with the same brand name in a big retail shop?...

Obviously this could happen, but I would imagine that it is very rare for major retail stores to sell fake goods.