ParanoidObsessive posted...
There's an incredibly common sales/PR tactic.
Let's say you are selling something to a customer for $10. One day, you raise your price to $100. The customer freaks out, refuses to pay, threatens to stop buying from you forever, etc etc. So you "compromise" and agree to lower your price to $15. The customer agrees because $15 is better than $100, and at least you showed a willingness to listen. The customers win!
...except now you're charging them $5 more than you were before. At the cost of a little bit of bad PR (that will blow over because everyone is a goldfish who can't remember more than 20 minutes ago), and maybe a few customers who
actually
stopped using your product. But the revenue you lost is easily offset by the revenue you gained. And will continue to gain.
It's not as effective as the "boiling frog" (making small changes over time so people don't notice or complain, and then suddenly you're charging them three times as much and they never realized it). But it's definitely a thing companies have done.
I think that's price priming. You walk in and make them expect a $100 product, but low and behold, you can get it for the low low price of $15.