Dollars & Sense

Human Sell-cology

We work tirelessly to help our customers.  A good spot to see this is on our sale site’s pricing page, which lists 60+ features that clients receive—often for free. (Sometimes I think that we’re philanthropists. Twenty-five percent of retail clients pay nothing each month.) Each feature is one that we’ve labored over.  

But, ironically, our hard work may get overlooked and under-appreciated if key psychological insights are overlooked by me. In his book Influence: Science and Practice, Robert Cialdini speaks to the power of price when making a decision. He's not talking about offering low prices—he's talking about the power of high prices. Many 60-year old store owners don't understand software features when shopping for it for their stores. As a result, they make a mental shortcut: if it's cheap, it must be a low-quality product. If it's expensive, it must be good. If it's expensive, it must be good. I do this all the time when I order wine at a restaurant (don’t tell my dinner guests). 

When we build a great product, we also have to keep in mind the psychology of decisions and how store owners navigate selecting software. That’s why we should be reading not only the RetailDive newsletter and the Wall St. Journal, but also thinking about how turkeys react to the chirps from their newborns (an anecdote in Cialdini's book). 

In the near future, we’ll update our pricing page. We’ll show less information (one will be able to click to view more details). We’ll show that while the price is $0 for the starter plan, its value is $59/month.  This will help the layperson quickly value it and compare it to other providers.  

We’re going to help customers take mental shortcuts. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to take short cuts ourselves. We won’t be cutting any corners behind the scenes. We build a quality product grounded in science and, when appropriate, dress it with psychology. For some reason, this reminds me of Chris Nolan's movie The Prestige about the dueling magicians. Behind the scenes, it was Nicholas Tesla’s science making the ‘magic' happen. There was nothing magical about Hugh Jackman reappearing.  (…Side note: I was a security guard in college with Jonah Nolan, Chris’s brother.) 

I guess what I’m saying is: the team at Bridge is our Nicholas Tesla.

Tags:
cialdini pricing prestige

View Post on Shop Local

---

---