Professionals establish grounds for value-based selling
By Zion Rufus
Changes in consumer preferences, buying behaviour, economic uncertainties, and inflationary pressures have left marketers distraught on how to blur the lines between value-based selling and price-based selling.
Although inflation has continued to erode purchasing power of consumers, some consumers still rank products for their value as to them, price is arbitrary and value is fundamental.
However, various findings have revealed that the approach to value over pricing and vice versa is dependent on social stratification.
In an exclusive conversation led by marketing communications consultant Fridel Makun; Olumide Akinsola, co-founder and group VP of growth, QuickBus; and Bukayo Ewuoso, senior account manager, West & Central Africa, Eskimi on the continuous importance of value over price for consumers as inflationary pressures worsen, Makun pointed that as a marketer, if you lead with price, you’d suffer churn when the price of your product/service changes.
In his submission, Makun advised: “Lead with value and the customer understands that the experience and how good your product makes them feel is way more significant than a price change. And your service/product has to be on point too.”
Meanwhile, an online research carried out by MARKETING EDGE also revealed that customers are beginning to ditch brand preference and loyalty to buying from brands that offered fair prices.
Customer Care Personnel, Deborah Olaiya noted in a WhatsApp message: “For me, especially this period where you can’t even spare any portion of your income for discretionary spending, I honestly no longer care about the brand, I am now more particular about the prices and how it affects my income.”
What’s more, the online research also showed that the influence of price on the purchase decision process is product specific as respondents shared that their decision to switch between brands is largely dependent on circumstances and/or product attributes such as quality and perceived value.
Medical practitioner, Oredola Suraj said: “For me, it depends on my need at the time; I tend to juxtapose pricing and preference. What I need at a particular time might be subject to brand, because probably, it’s only a particular brand that can offer me the best of that product; at another time, what I buy might be based on how much I have in my pocket.”
Olumide Akinsola who shared from his wealth of knowledge on designing pricing templates disclosed that sometimes people just want cheap, affordable stuff, especially amongst a certain demographic.
He pointed: “If you like, educate from here to Timbuktu, if you’re priced out of their reach, no dice. And unless you’re selling to the wealthy niche, you will need to take into consideration that the larger population in Nigeria is poor; so assuming you have a solid product, you’ve got to find a middle ground between pricing, and education. A way to bridge that gap sometimes is those partnerships I talked about, to foster stickiness. You want to keep people in/on your app/website/product, so find complementary solutions to your primary offering and layer it.”
For Bukayo Ewuoso, a more realistic approach is the combination of value-based selling, mixed with education-based selling in the long term, to build the consumer knowledge; and why it’s valuable with the self awareness of the next best alternative and price breaking points.
In his argument, Ewuoso pointed out that in the case of value-based selling, Value based selling “perceived value can be the status it confers on them, benefits, etc. Education based-selling involves educating the consumer so they understand what makes the product that price without compromising top notch quality.”
He explained: “For example, when a shoe maker tells you where the leather is sourced, how it’s been hand-made, why it’s so, the longevity and benefit of using that leather quality, at times, access to top repairers you can’t easily access. Best alternative is understanding what the primary and secondary substitute of your product is in the market. Price breaking point is when you set too high a price that no matter the value it provides, the price doesn’t justify it to the consumer and not necessarily an affordability situation.Yup especially Nigerians. Most Nigerians are price sensitive because the majority of the population is still on level 1 or 2 of Maslow’s pyramid and a lot of things are competing for that same money. Disposable income gets slimmer daily and the number opportunity cost of 1 single purchase increases every day.”
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