In his book "The Paradox of Choice" psychologist Barry Schwartz talks about how we make choices in life and what is influencing our decisions.
There are a few chapters in this book providing insights on how we evaluate information and make purchasing decisions, that I found quite interesting.
One particular aspect that author is mentioning in this book is
Anchoring effect.
When we are presented with the situation, where we have to make a decision on a product, we base our decisions on comparisons of similar products. That's why department stores almost always have sales items on display. The original price becomes an anchor against the sales price, giving people an impression of a bargain. Sometimes stores on purpose bring much more expensive products to use them as anchors and to push sales of less expensive products. However, those products are not all that inexpensive. They only look inexpensive, when they are placed right next to very expensive products. For example, an $800 suite looks like a bargain in a store, where most suites cost over $2000. However, the same $800 suite would not look like a bargain in a store, where most suites cost less than $500. So in this kind of evaluation, $800 suite is at the mercy of the context in which it is found.
Retailers often use sales prices to create anchors. By creating more attractive options (similar products, with reduced price etc.) they are guiding our decision process into purchasing the product they want us to buy.
So when it comes to setting your prices for your products on iCraft, consider how each of your products will be anchored to the surrounding products. We offer a function on iCraft that allows you to place your products on sale (to place multiple items on sale - select them on this page
https://icraftgifts.com/member_products.php and specify the discount and the expiry date at the bottom of the product table), however, not many of you are using this function. Just check our Sales page -
https://icraftgifts.com/handmade/on-sale/ I was wondering why is that... Having a few items on sale at all times might help you to push sales of certain products, so don't ignore this function completely. It might turn out to be very useful.
I really enjoyed reading this book, so I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in understanding how we make choices. Here is Ted's talk where Barry Schwartz talks about his book.
http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html Enjoy!