Run a profitable clothing store

Chapter 30 Main Pricing Strategies of Smart Stores (4)
In general, customer responses to price changes vary according to the value of the garment and the frequency of purchase.Customers are more sensitive to price changes in high-value and necessities clothing.Pay little attention to price changes for low-value, infrequently purchased clothing.

2. Watch competitors react
There may be one, two, or multiple main competitors facing a clothing store. Competitors may have complete countermeasures for price adjustments in clothing stores, or they may adopt different countermeasures for each price adjustment.So understanding how competitors react is more complicated than understanding how customers respond to a clothing store's price adjustment.

To understand the response of competitors, it can be assumed that the clothing store is facing only one large competitor. The possible responses of competitors can be understood from two different starting points: one is to assume that the competitors have a set of strategies to adapt to price changes; Competitors treat every price change as a single challenge.For each hypothesis, there are different research methods.

For the case where competitors are assumed to have a set of price response policies, they can be learned from internal sources and with the help of statistical analysis.There are several methods of obtaining inside information, some acceptable and others bordering on spying.Such as poaching a manager from a competitor to obtain important information such as the competitor's consideration procedure and response form, or hiring a competitor's former staff to establish a special unit whose job task is to imitate the competitor's position, viewpoint, and method to think about problems .In addition, information about competitors can also be obtained through various channels such as customers and suppliers.

If a clothing store wants to estimate and predict the possible response of competitors to the price changes of its products, it can consider the following aspects:

(1) If competitors deal with the store's price changes in the original old way, in this case, the clothing store can accurately predict the competitor's response.

(2) If the competitor takes every price change as a new challenge and responds accordingly according to his own interests at that time, in the face of this situation, the shopkeeper must conclude that the competitor's interests at that time are what.Clothing stores must investigate competitors' current financial situation, as well as recent sales and production capacity, customer loyalty, and the goals of their own clothing stores.If the competitor's store goal is to maximize profits, he will take countermeasures such as increasing the advertising budget, strengthening advertising, or purchasing high-quality clothing.If the competitor's goal is to increase market share, he may adjust the price as the price of the clothing store's products changes.In short, when the price of your clothing store changes, estimating the competitor's price change response is the key to ensuring the success of the clothing price change.

When your clothing store faces multiple competitors, if you want to change the price, you must estimate the possible response of each competitor.When all competitors respond roughly the same, the analysis can focus on typical competitors, because typical competitor responses can represent the responses of other competitors.Competitors will respond differently if they differ on important issues such as size, market share, and policies.In this case, it is necessary to analyze each competitor one by one.Generally speaking, the price change of clothing is a relatively complicated issue. Only when the shopkeeper treats it seriously and cautiously can he achieve good results.

Why take the initiative to raise the price
Consumers are generally not positive about the price increase of clothing.Even if the store has a thousand reasons or 1 reasons, consumers will have a sense of imbalance psychologically.Practice has proved that after the price of a certain type of clothing is raised, it will be relatively unsalable for a long time. Only when people gradually adapt psychologically can the market recover slowly.For this reason, savvy shopkeepers try to avoid raising prices.However, sometimes due to inflation, the market price level continues to generally rise, and the cost of the store has to increase accordingly, forcing the store to raise prices to maintain operations.However, there is a trick to raising the price.If this technique is used properly, the store will not be affected or less affected by the adverse effects of price increases.If you don't talk about skills at all, or if your skills are clumsy, it will have a great impact on the operation of the store.

No matter what the reason is, the price increase is always unfavorable to the interests of consumers.Therefore, we must pay attention to the psychological reaction of consumers and adopt an appropriate price increase strategy.

(1) If the price increase is caused by the increase in clothing costs, it is necessary to reduce the price increase as much as possible, and at the same time strive to improve operation management and reduce expenses.

(2) If the price is increased for profit, the sales service must be improved, the sales environment should be improved, the service items should be increased, and a good reputation should be established.

(3) If there is a price increase caused by the shortage of supply, do not drive up prices and cause consumers to complain.Under the premise of fully considering the affordability of consumers, the price should be raised appropriately.

There are two ways for shops to increase the price of clothing and reduce the price of clothing, that is, light tone or dark tone.Ming tune is to directly increase the price of clothing.For example, a certain brand of clothing originally sold for 350 yuan, but now it is raised to 380 yuan.The dark tone is that the price of the clothing remains unchanged, and other aspects of the clothing are considered to actually increase the price of the clothing.

It is best for clothing stores to avoid overt adjustments. If there is no choice, they should also explain and publicize the actual reasons for price adjustments as much as possible, such as rising raw materials, processing costs, and sales channel costs.Clothing is best marked up in a darker way, if possible.There are many ways to darken, here are only two representative ways:

1. Reduce the quantity of clothing to achieve the goal of substantially increasing prices

Some clothing has already been customarily priced, and consumers will feel dissatisfied if there is a slight change. For this type of clothing, you can achieve your goal by reducing the quantity.In this way, when competitors raise prices, the store can vigorously advertise that the price remains unchanged.Although in essence, the actual profits of this store and competitors are the same, but consumers are more accepting of your products than competitors' products.This is related to the habits of consumers, and also related to consumers' aversion to price increases, but the issue of quantity must be handled carefully so that consumers will not notice too much, otherwise, consumers may feel cheated.

2. Change the product model type
It is not difficult to find that foreign clothing is often a series of several models.This approach is actually a manifestation of good management.Because from the price point of view, if you want to increase the price of this kind of clothing, you only need to change one model. The internal quality is almost the same, and the style of individual parts can be slightly changed.This kind of price increase is convenient and concealed, and it is difficult for consumers to detect it, so it is not a psychologically unacceptable problem.It should be said that this is a very scientific and artistic way of raising prices.

Five Strategies for Clothing Price Increases

From an economic point of view, the price index always shows an upward trend, and rising prices are a normal economic phenomenon.At the same time, since consumer incomes are also growing, generally speaking, rising prices will not lead to a decline in consumers' real living standards.However, commodity price increases are always unfavorable to the economic interests of consumers, because commodity price increases mean that purchasing the same commodity requires more money. Therefore, consumers naturally have an unpleasant reaction or instinct to commodity price increases psychologically. Reaction.Therefore, clothing stores should try to avoid price increases.If you have to mention it, you can consider the following psychological strategies:

1. Choose the right moment
For example, during the holidays, people are in a good mood, have a strong desire to buy, and have strong affordability. In this way, people's psychological reaction to price increases can be alleviated to a certain extent.In addition, when the prices of related products, especially those of similar clothing stores, are reduced one after another, it is also a good time to raise prices. It often works through customers' "differing psychology".

2. The price increase should be as small as possible, and if necessary, the price increase can be divided into several times
The price increase is small, does not exceed the sensory threshold of consumers, and the psychological reaction caused is enough.It is better to increase the price several times than to increase the price by a lot.From the perspective of consumer psychology, consumers can accept the fact of price cuts, but they cannot accept the fact of price increases. Therefore, they can only adopt a strategy similar to "simmering frogs" to let consumers increase prices by a small amount each time. Gradually accept the fact of price increases.When raising prices, not all clothing prices are raised, and the final overall price increase is achieved by raising the prices of each product separately.In the process of operation, try to lengthen the interval between two price increases so that consumers can bear and get used to it psychologically.

3. Update the product line

Renewing product lines is one of the most common strategies for raising prices.Because of product updates, more consumers are forced to accept new products, and cost increases or image optimization have become reasons why new products are more expensive than old ones.

For example, if the price increase this time is the business behavior of each clothing store, the clothing can be gradually eliminated, and then the market will be gradually replaced by the emergence of new products, so that consumers can choose new products without knowing it.

4. Make a compelling case for the price increase

Reasons for price increases should be refined according to their respective circumstances. The most appropriate reason is not the most eloquent and most sympathetic, but can be transformed into positive publicity to make more customers understand, which kills two birds with one stone.The best reason is to let consumers feel that the price increase did not harm the interests of consumers, but really got more consumption returns. This will not only have no negative impact, but also bring consumers the feeling of "you get what you pay for" Feel.

5. Do not raise prices easily
It is necessary to recognize such a concept: price cuts are not only easy to damage the overall brand image, but once the price is reduced, it is difficult to raise it back, and price increases are also likely to reduce consumers’ favorability for the brand, and even cause serious refusal to buy.Many garments have successfully increased their sense of value and brand value through price increases, but attention must be paid to formulating a scientific pricing strategy and carefully adjusting prices to prevent this sharp sword from hurting yourself.

The need to adjust the price of clothing

The clothing market is changing rapidly, and the price of clothing is not set once and for all.Clothing stores must constantly adjust prices according to changes in the market environment and launch a price offensive strategy.The price offensive strategy includes two situations: one is to actively adjust prices according to changes in market conditions, that is, the active price change strategy;

It is an objective requirement of the law of value and an important pricing strategy for clothing stores to frequently adjust prices up or down.Its significance is mainly reflected in the following points:

1. Conducive to the sales of clothing

In a market environment, commodity prices are closely related to market demand. Generally, when commodity prices rise, market demand falls; on the contrary, when commodity prices fall, market demand rises.Sometimes, due to the characteristics of the product itself, even if the price of the product continues to rise, the market demand will not only not decline, but will also have an upward trend.Therefore, as long as the price of clothing is constantly adjusted, as long as you grasp the timing and look at the market, no matter whether it rises or falls, it will not affect its sales.

2. Reflect the value of clothing

The price is based on the value, and the determination of the price must reflect the value of the clothing in a correct and timely manner.Generally, the greater the value of clothing, the higher its price; vice versa.The so-called "you get what you pay for" is the reflection of the value in the price.

3. Master the initiative of clothing management
Clothing stores must grasp the timing of price adjustments, only in this way can the stores actively adapt to the market.If it rises, it will increase, which can make the store get more profits; if it falls, it will decrease, which can enable the store to expand product sales, speed up capital turnover, and also increase profits.Therefore, the reasonable rise and fall of clothing prices and well-founded advances and retreats are important conditions for clothing stores to take the initiative to operate and become winners in market competition.

4. Adapt to the situation of the clothing market

The supply and demand relationship in the market is constantly changing.Therefore, the price of clothing should also adapt to this change; it rises when it is best-selling, and falls when it is slow-moving, so as to achieve a relative balance and stability of supply and demand.

Passive rise and fall of price

The above mentioned is the active price adjustment carried out by the clothing store according to various situations, and the other is that the competitor has adjusted the price first, forcing the clothing store to take appropriate price countermeasures.Passive price adjustment also includes passive price reduction and passive price increase.But from a strategic point of view, both are a timely response to deal with competitors' price adjustments.

However, passive price adjustment does not mean that you see how competitors change without your own opinion, and you also change accordingly.Before a clothing store company responds to a competitor's price change, it should investigate and consider why the competitor changes the price; whether the competitor's price change is expedient or permanent; if the competitor's price change is ignored, the clothing store will be What is the impact on the market share and profit of the clothing store, and whether other clothing stores will respond; how will competitors and other clothing stores react to every possible response of this clothing store; what is the current financial situation of competitors, and the operating ability How, what are the sales goals and customer loyalty.On the basis of studying the purpose of competitors' price adjustment and the response of the same industry, according to the specific situation of this clothing store, take corresponding countermeasures.

In a clothing store that deals in similar products, if the competitor lowers the price, the clothing store must also lower the price accordingly, otherwise customers will buy the competitor's product instead of the clothing store's product.If some clothing stores raise their prices, other clothing stores may also increase their prices if they think that the price increase is beneficial to them. Clothing stores have also been unsuccessful in raising prices.

In a clothing store that deals in different types of merchandise, the clothing store has more freedom to react to competitors' price changes.In this case, buyers will not only consider the price of clothing when choosing clothing, but also consider factors such as clothing quality, service, and reliability. care.

Under market economy conditions, competition among clothing stores is often quite fierce.In order to increase market share, gain a firm foothold in the market, and face price attacks from competitors, clothing stores can choose the following strategies:

1. The price remains unchanged
When a clothing store thinks that following competitors to cut prices will reduce too much profit, keeping the price unchanged, the market share will not drop too much, and it is easy to regain it when necessary. When customers who are less important and are sure to retain more customers, the strategy of keeping the price can be adopted.

When using this strategy, one has to take into account that competitors will be more confident because of the initial success, that the morale of their own store staff will be lowered, and that they may end up losing more market share than expected.When clothing stores are forced to finally use price cuts to regain the market, the gains outweigh the losses.

2. Use non-price means to fight back

(End of this chapter)