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Originally Posted by Emvi Is this a strategy from manufacturers to arrive at the 'right' pricing? Do market response/sentiments, media drive reviews/feedback influence the pricing strategy? |
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Originally Posted by GTO From what I have heard, the pricing is pretty much decided by the time that the previews & drives take place. In rare cases, the pricing might be tweaked, but again, it's the exception rather than the norm. |
Like GTO said, the corporates already have a pricing range for their upcoming product before they go public with the new product exposure and then gauge how the paying public reacts to their new product through media hypes, media & TD drives, displays, road shows, etc. This pricing list is usually sent to dealership GMs via email in Excel file attachments and stays a guarded secret until the official price announcement day.
Case in point - the 2015 Hyundai Creta. I was shown the ex-showroom prices which were received by the dealership GM (a very good friend of mine) about 10 days prior to the official launch & price reveal and shared the same here in our forum (keeping my source's name secret, but of course). The Creta had by then garnered huge interest online and offline, and was destined to become a blockbuster.
Come launch day on 21st June 2015, and all variants across the range had seen a steep hike of ~50K-95K ex-showroom, from the prices I had seen in that official Excel sheet!
My source helplessly told me that they had received an updated email with revised prices on the morning of the launch day itself, and he had no time to update me with the same.
So yes, public interest in the new product does have a say in the final pricing decided by the corporates - keep the same to make it look attractive and/or competitive upon launch, go slightly down if interest isn't upto expectations or grab some extra sales vis-a-vis competition, or jack it up if it's a runaway hit and is seeing a lot of pre-launch demand.
Some floater pricings are also teased by "sources" of these companies across media channels - Facebook, Twitter, etc. Public reaction to these "leaked" price lists are also studied and that too influence the final official pricing.
Also remember, most companies resort to posting prices as "introductory". They reserve the right to change/modify the prices of a new product depending on how it performs in sales in the coming months. Addition/deletion of features/variants are also dependent on sales performances, and that too is a reserved right.
Nobody would have forgotten
the S-Cross fiasco in January 2016, in that regard.
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Originally Posted by Emvi Now the all important question- Will this hype make Tata greedy and price it higher than they would have initially thought of? |
I have pointed it before
in the Punch thread - one of my sources booked the Punch base in Mumbai and was quoted a price of 6.70L OTR for the same, which comes to around 5.50L ex-showroom.
Same was conveyed by another birdie yesterday from Kerala, so it's pretty much decided that the range should start from 5.50L, if there's no last-minute change to that from Tata Motors.