camels and rubber duckies

great article from joel splosky on pricing and maximizing profits: Camels and Rubber Duckies

When you're setting a price, you're sending a signal. If your competitor's software ranges in price from about $100 to about $500, and you decide, heck, my product is about in the middle of the road, so I'll sell it for $300, well, what message do you think you're sending to your customers? You're telling them that you think your software is "eh." I have a better idea: charge $1350. Now your customers will think, "oh, man, that stuff has to be the cat's whiskers since they're charging mad coin for it!"

And then they won't buy it because the limit on the corporate AMEX is $500.

Misery.

The more you learn about pricing, the less you seem to know.

one of the links points to an earlier article on commoditization using computer companies as his examples: Strategy Letter V