Marketing 12th Edition by Charles Lamb,Charles Lamb,Joe Hair

Exercise 2

For continued general assistance on business plans and marketing plans, visit www.bplans.com or http://www.businessplans.org. You can also refer to Appendix 1 of Chapter 2 for marketing plan checklist items related to pricing decisions. Once you've worked through this marketing plan exercise, you can complete the Part 6 Marketing Planning Worksheet on your companion Web site at www.cengage.com/marketing/lamb. Continue the pricing stage of the strategic planning process for your chosen company with following exercises:
1. What price policy should your firm use? Are there any legal implications of this choice? Will there be differences in online versus off -line pricing policies? Are these differences related to your cost structure in the online environment? Why? Are these differences legal?
2. Note how easy it is to compare prices on the Internet. Check out price comparison sites such as www.pricescan.com, www.mysimon.com, and www.bizrate.com. Given how products and prices are displayed, how can your offering show a differential advantage if there is a price difference? As prices reach parity on the Internet, how else will you differentiate your products or services?
3. What kinds of price discounts can your company offer? Should discounted prices be offered to online buyers that off -line buyers do not receive? Why might you charge your online customers less than your off -line customers?
4. As you work on the Internet component of your marketing plan, you must decide how to set geographic pricing policies. Will you appear as a non geographic specific Internet provider and offer the same shipping costs to all, or will you have to charge more for longer distances? Will you market your product or services locally, regionally, or nationally? Just because you are on the Internet, does that mean you have to try to serve all markets? Explain.