See replies below.
Best regards, Ivan Baggett Bagotronix Inc. website: www.bagotronix.com
Hamid A. Wasti wrote:
Customer specific pricing makes sense in far more areas than just bulk purchases. Here are a few factors to consider:
If you know someone to be competent and already familiar with your software from a previous job, you may want to give them a lower price because you know that you will not have to spent support $$$ on them.
Maybe. Where's my discount, Altium? I haven't used Protel Tech Support since 1998.
If someone is a free-lance designer who will expose your product to several clients a year and some of whom may eventually be impressed enough to want to buy, you will want to give that person a low price as well.
Leading to potential conflicts of interests, or appearance of cronyism. Better to keep everyone's pricing uniform, and offer generous trial periods. That way everyone can evaluate the usefulness of the product before buying.
If someone is a celebrity or a well respected authority in the field, having them counted as a user of your product will provide marketing benefits and hence they should get a better price.
Maybe that works for perfume or fashions, but we are talking engineering here. A celebrity engineer? Give me a break! The closest thing to a celebrity engineer I know of is Bob Pease. And few engineers outside of the readers of the magazine in which he is published know of him. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates don't count - they have for a long time been more about management than engineering. They are celebrities because they run big companies and are rich, not because of their engineering accomplishments. Bill Gates actually did some real engineering once upon a time (yes, adapting others' software qualifies as real engineering), but he didn't become famous for that.
If someone is known to be an idiot who will suck up a lot of support resources, having them pay a higher price would be a good idea.
And sales people are supposed to detect this how? Most sales people don't understand what they are selling, so how can they be expected to make a judgement as to the qualifications of a prospective buyer?
If someone is known to be hard to please and vocal in complaining about whatever product they use, quoting them an astronomically high price in the hope that they do not use your product would a good idea.
Maybe. But again, how is the sales person supposed to know this? They likely do not have blacklists from the tech support department.
The list goes on.... but I think you get the picture.
Hamid
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