Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Pricing Strategies
Pricing Strategies
Pricing Strategies
You have completed the formal costing exercise and you now know what your costs are.
The next step is to decide on an export price. This decision is divided into to parts; the
first is to decide on the broad pricing approach you intend to follow (which we discuss
below) and the second is to decide on a specific pricing strategy. As far as the broad
approaches to price setting are concerned, there are essentially three ways in which you
can approach your pricing in foreign markets. These are discussed below:
1. Competitor-oriented pricing
In terms of this approach, your pricing decisions would depend on what the competition
does. Competitor-oriented pricing is the approach to follow when you are dealing with a
market where prices are openly set through the process of supply and demand as in the
case of most commodity markets such as coal, coffee, wheat and gold. It is also common
in markets where there are one or two powerful competitors that set the price levels, for
smaller suppliers to follow.
2. Cost-oriented pricing
In the case of cost-orientated pricing, you would calculating your total unit cost and add
on a profit margin to arrive at an export price. Consumer demand or competitor actions
thus have little bearing on your decision-making. This approach is commonly used in the
case of industrial goods where it is often difficult to differentiate between products in
terms of their perceived value to the customer.
3. Demand-oriented pricing