--- In exs-users@yahoogroups.com, Nick Batzdorf <recording@...> wrote: > > Sorry to be a curmudgeon, but to me this is just plain wrong. > > If I were Redmatica, no way would I stage a group buy on Keymap. I've > been working for years on a brilliant and unique program that > threatens to revolutionize sample library development. Why should I > lower the price? I can't raise it again after a group buy, in fact > it's already a problem that people have been trained to expect group > buys with bargain basement prices before they buy anything. > > Of course it's nice to get ridiculously cheap prices, but if we want > to have great software, we need to pay for it. > > Now, lest anyone think I'm a hypocrite, we did run a group buy for VI > mag on the Logic list. But that wasn't anything that's going to hurt > the industry by lowering the prices to the point that magazines can't > survive. So it's not that I'm against normal capitalistic processes > or that I don't see the other side, just that I want great software > to continue to be developed. > > > Nick Batzdorf, editor/publisher > Virtual Instruments Magazine > www.Virtualinstrumentsmag.com > 1-877 VImagzn (846-2496) > +1818/905-9101, cell 590-9101 Hi Nick, I will look up the word 'curmudgeon' later, but I think there are a number of ways I personally would justify this: 1) market penetration, get more people using your program instead of your competition and you have captured a market for upgrades which are a future revenue stream, and for additional applications you might build to create a suite of integrated applications 2) a volume buy from an accountany perspective has resulted from no direct marketing campaign which can be a significant part of the unit cost of a product (Im speaking very generally here since that is so dependent on your actual market) 3) more money, money you wouldnt get if you didnt do the group buy, and what is the additional cost? some time allocated to it by your product manager, possibly no sales commission either... maybe.... 4) market penetration... did I say this already :-) no, seriously, if you have a product that is growing in a competitive market, your strategy probably will be market growth. If you are in a growing market, your strategy will include (real) market growth. However if you are dominating a market, then maybe you wouldnt do a volume discount... but then if there were customers out there, as in the case of our example here, customer who dont have the product, of which you would hope some of them would be customers who would nt buy your product unless you did your volume discount / group buy... you might want to grab the customers instead of leaving them to go to your competition. ..cash flow would be another one... feed the coders..... Hope that helps albeit a little rambling..