I’m sometimes asked to survey for pricing.
It is very difficult.
One of the great geniuses of marketing, David Ogilvy, says you cannot survey for a price point. I agree. There ARE two effective things you can do in research to establish pricing:
1. Competitor research. What are competitors charging for similar products, lower end and higher end products?
2. You can TEST pricing. Offer the product at different prices or variations and see how it affects sales. This is particularly easy to do with online stores. You can test different pricing, shipping charges, volume discounts etc. and see if they affect your conversion rate.
Otherwise, forget it. Individuals surveyed as to “how much they would pay for a ___” or “Would you consider this price high, low, or reasonable” have no incentive to tell the truth – and some incentive to lie. Worse, they may try to be honest, but things can be very different when they have to reach for their wallet.
Pricing
