Perhaps the "fully booked" comments are a marketing strategy but personally it seems flawed. I have never reached out to a person who has put this 9n their twitter feed because, well, they were fully booked.
In terms of the prices going up to compensate for slow economy, also seems flawed to me. Everyone is facing the same economy right now and most are not sitting there looking to spend more right now. Personally, I used to indulge ever week or two, now I indulge a lot less frequently as a result of the economy and only with those whose prices are in my budget. I wont pay inflated prices. Just a matter of principle. I mean, the more who succumb to inflated prices then legitimize them and they become the new standard. One of two things will happen, punters will cave and pay the inflated prices or providers will realize the market value and adjust their prices accordingly.
You need to park your car. You come across two lots that are equally desirable places to park your car in all material respects - essentially neither offers any advantage over the other. The only difference is that one of the lots has posted a sign indicating that it's full. I don't think many people would select the lot with the 'full' sign in this case. (Though the lot may not actually be full in reality.) So in this case, you'd be right - there's really no benefit in pretending to be at capacity.
But which parking lot you use isn't a subjective decision. You park where the price, distance from your destination, security (etc.) factors are most favourable. You don't care what the name of the lot is - who owns it - if their attendants are better conversationalists... right?
Now consider this situation.
Two men walk down the street. One is very hungry, the other just finished dinner. They come upon two burger joints. One is empty. The other is full and people are lined up outside waiting to get in. The hungry man might choose the empty burger joint today because he's prioritizing speed over everything else - but both men will feel the busy joint clearly has a better burger (despite never eating one.) But if you don't care about quality and will shove anything resembling a burger in your face - that's probably irrelevant.
Does that change your opinion at all?
Now to address your comments about pricing. You should probably give your comment a 2nd read, because I think you may have disproved your own position accidentally.
"In terms of the prices going up to compensate for slow economy, also seems flawed to me.... Personally, I used to indulge ever week or two, now I indulge a lot less frequently as a result of the economy..."
So if someone needs to earn $1,000 a month and they usually conduct 10 transactions at $100 each to get there - when the demand drops and they can only secure 5 transactions a month (because people like you are not buying as frequently as they once did) - how does one compensate for that? Well, raising the price of each transaction is the only option. They might also add some value to compensate for the increase if they're concerned about customer retention.
So if prices have gone up because people are spending less often, and people are spending less often because of the economy - isn't the price increase due to the economy?
Maybe I'm missing something here.
And your comments about refusing to pay inflated prices - okay - but what's an inflated price? If the market is happy to pay $10 for a pebble that used to cost $5 a year ago - that's one thing. If someone is asking you to pay $50 for a pebble that you can buy almost anywhere for $10 because they know you're desperate and they're the only pebble shop in town - that's another thing.
But again, that's assuming we're pricing out a commodity. Meaning there is no delta in terms of subjective value between any two pebbles. (We also would have accepted "All pebbles are created equally."
SO again - considering we're discussing how to price a very subjective service - I think your idea that there is (or should be) a standard pricing model is pretty absurd. I can't afford a Ferrari, but I'm not upset they cost a lot more than my Hyundai. If people stopped 'caving' and refused to spend 6 figures for Ferraris, it wouldn't make a lick of difference to us. We were priced out of the market from day 1.
This might not resonate with you - but people often buy things simply because they are scarcely available, or they are more expensive. It makes them feel special.
Look on the bright side: the best things in life are free.
VofT xoxo
