Merchandising Your Product

Merchandising Your Product


Did you know that you don’t have to raise your prices in order to make a bigger profit on each sale? You can accomplish this by using creative merchandising or packaging techniques. The key is to create value in your merchandising. Let me start off by giving you a proper definition of what merchandising really is. The true definition is how the product or service is presented to the customer. The premise is “Make it hard to buy a little and easy to buy a lot.” Let me give you an example. Buy two get three, or if you charge $100 for an 8x10 portrait, effective merchandising would be to have a second print price at a lesser amount at say $75 and the third one at $60. Instead of charging $300 for 3 8x10, we charge only $230. All your costs are built into the first 8x10, but within the second and third 8x10 lay the bigger profit margins, because all the cost and work are already covered with the 1st 8x10. You actually make more money on the second and third print than you do on the first, even if you charged less. The only extra work in selling 3- 8x10’s instead of (1) is to write on the lab bag (3) 8x10’s instead of (1). The principal applied is the more one invests the less one pays for each item. We create a win win situation where the customer wins because he feels he is getting a deal and we win because we were able to enhance the sale and thus make a larger profit, not only in percentages but also in actual dollars.

In making purchases that entails hundreds or even thousands of dollars, customers find it very difficult having to make a lot of buying decisions. That’s the problem I have with selling only from an a la carte price list. By only offering a la carte pricing, it requires them to make many buying decisions if they are interested in different sizes and quantities and coverage. This can happens in merchandising wedding photography. With all the different coverage’s and album styles available it is much easier for the customer when you can packages as much as you can up front so they only have to make one decision, that being “I’ll take package A” instead of having to pick and choose thus adding to the confusion. I do have an a la carte pricelist in my pricing guide, and if the customer wants to buy off this list he is more than welcome. It is not the best value, but if the customer only needs one print he can buy just one. We have to make enough profit when selling only one print, therefore justifying the a la carte price, but the real reason for a la carte pricing is to create value. Remember we said “make it easy to buy a lot and hard to buy a little”. Now the customer can do comparative shopping. He can compare a la carte pricing to package pricing and actually see the value in purchasing the package. The package price is higher but it’s a better value. The principal is the more the customer invests the better value it becomes. This is especially true in wedding photography. The more you can sell up front the better. After the wedding the excitement sort of wanes and the couple have many other expenses, and will often say “Can we get this at a later time”. You know and I know that the later time will never come, so it’s better to get a bigger commitment up front rather than later.

Another important consideration is making it easy for the customer to read and understand your pricelist. How many times have I looked at some pricelists and couldn’t figure out how to read it. It required the customer to jump through all these hoops in order to qualify for discounts. When this happens and the customer is unable to understand something in the sales process, he won’t make any decision except that he “wants to think it over” or “I’ll get back to you”, or some other stall. Let me suggest a better option. Why not give the customer something he can understand. One of the things many studios have implemented is an “Order Information Guide”.One can be developed for each of your product lines. This guide will include an introduction and a Table of contents. Some of the information included would be:

• Table of Contents

• Information on you guarantee

• How To Order

• Information on cropping

• What’s included as far as retouching and finishes.

• A la carte pricing

• Package pricing

• Special items

• Photographs of all your products

• Collections and collages

• Payment options

Another important feature of this guide is that you can have picture illustrations of all of the products. This gives the customer a visual of what they are purchasing and everything is spelled out in a clean and informative manner. These can be printed in house and bound with a plastic or wire spiral binding. This looks much more professional and gives the customer all the information they need in making a buying decision

There are exceptions to the a la carte vs. packages argument. If your business model is high price low volume, and you are able to spend more time with the customer you can utilize the a la carte method. If your sales techniques are very good and you want to spend more time, and have done all the other things building up to the sales session, a la carte selling could be better. But if you are doing higher volumes such as children or seniors, I believe you can earn more dollars per hour using information guides and package pricing. Remember the two principals; “Make it easy for the customer to do business with you”, and “Make it hard to buy a little and easy to buy a lot.”



If you want more information on the Information Guides mentioned in this article, contact us at businesssurvival@verizon.net