Maybe. In my experience, a more common case is that the buyer has no way to evaluate value other than quoted price and so they're actually _much happier_ with a huge price than they would be with a smaller price for the same work.
You think they’re happier to pay more than to pay less? I’m having a hard time believing that hypothetical.
Regardless, companies that don’t know how to evaluate the value of quoted work will eventually figure out the value later. A client that that is initially happy with a price will likely become retroactively disappointed when they deal with another contractor in the future who has more realistic pricing.
In my experience contracting, I’ve encountered a lot of “You paid how much for this!?” situations when dealing with work from prior contractors. Once they realize how bad and/or overpriced the work of a prior contractor was, that person’s reputation is done. Ironically, the contractor will often try to use them as references for other clients because they were initially happy.
> You think they’re happier to pay more than to pay less? I’m having a hard time believing that hypothetical.
I believe it. Here's an anecdote which blew my mind when I saw it as a kid, and which illustrates the point.
When I was growing up, we had a guy in our church who made guitars. Beautiful instruments (seriously, look up Petros guitars sometime because they're really beautiful), and played/sounded good to boot. Bruce was charging between $3000 and $6000 at the time depending on specifics, so while pricey they weren't expensive by guitar standards. He told me that he got feedback from customers that they weren't sure whether or not his guitars would be good, because they were priced so reasonably (compared to what one would expect to spend on a custom made guitar).
So Bruce decided to raise his prices, and see what happened. He said his sales went up after raising prices, presumably because the guitars were now at a price point where people went "yeah this is what a custom handmade instrument should cost" rather than "what's the catch here". Weird, but hard to argue with results. People aren't always rational buyers, as someone else pointed out.
Tl;dr: Payless Shoes, a discount shoe retailer, opened a fake high-end store under the Palessi name and got fashion influencers to gush about how great the shoes were. People who actually bought such Palessi shoes probably were happier with them than if they’d bought them at Payless.
Aurornis|2 years ago
Regardless, companies that don’t know how to evaluate the value of quoted work will eventually figure out the value later. A client that that is initially happy with a price will likely become retroactively disappointed when they deal with another contractor in the future who has more realistic pricing.
In my experience contracting, I’ve encountered a lot of “You paid how much for this!?” situations when dealing with work from prior contractors. Once they realize how bad and/or overpriced the work of a prior contractor was, that person’s reputation is done. Ironically, the contractor will often try to use them as references for other clients because they were initially happy.
bigstrat2003|2 years ago
I believe it. Here's an anecdote which blew my mind when I saw it as a kid, and which illustrates the point.
When I was growing up, we had a guy in our church who made guitars. Beautiful instruments (seriously, look up Petros guitars sometime because they're really beautiful), and played/sounded good to boot. Bruce was charging between $3000 and $6000 at the time depending on specifics, so while pricey they weren't expensive by guitar standards. He told me that he got feedback from customers that they weren't sure whether or not his guitars would be good, because they were priced so reasonably (compared to what one would expect to spend on a custom made guitar).
So Bruce decided to raise his prices, and see what happened. He said his sales went up after raising prices, presumably because the guitars were now at a price point where people went "yeah this is what a custom handmade instrument should cost" rather than "what's the catch here". Weird, but hard to argue with results. People aren't always rational buyers, as someone else pointed out.
sokoloff|2 years ago
People are not rational consumers.
See the Palessi story from a few years ago: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/payless-sold-discount-shoes...
Tl;dr: Payless Shoes, a discount shoe retailer, opened a fake high-end store under the Palessi name and got fashion influencers to gush about how great the shoes were. People who actually bought such Palessi shoes probably were happier with them than if they’d bought them at Payless.