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You're practically giving that app away at $5. Wedding-related businesses are extremely high margin, simply because it's super easy to rip people off when they'

You're practically giving that app away at $5. Wedding-related businesses are extremely high margin, simply because it's super easy to rip people off when they're really happy (same applies for funerals, except people are too sad to care in that case). You could probably sell this for 5x as much and still make more money - the bride will want everything to be perfect for the wedding and will be willing to spend whatever it takes.

rytis 14y ago
I suppose this is business common sense, but, man, it sounds awful from a moral perspective when you put it this way... Really, praying on vulnerable. Just my very subjective opinion.
- pyre 14y ago
  The same thing happens to parents in general, but specifically, first-time parents because they have 0 experience.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    Yep, baby products are another good example. Initially, the parents are happy, but soon enough they become stressed out, for the long haul. Both emotions play in the retailers' favor. There was a controversy a while back about how Target figured out a teenage girl was pregnant before her dad did (based on her purchases) and started sending her ads for baby products. The reason why they did this is because people don't shop around for the best deals on everyday items, not really. People think they're getting the best deal, but they're actually trapped in their habits. One of the few times when these habits are reshaped is when a baby is born, because newfound parents suddenly start buying a lot of new stuff, but don't have a lot of free time to research the options. By detecting customers who will become parents in the near future and sending them specially targeted advertising/discounts ahead of time for new products that they'll need, you can snag them as customers for years to come.
kaptain 14y ago
People are willing to pay a lot for wedding-related /services/. A lot of people that want to save money on a wedding would buy this because they DON'T want to pay for a wedding planner who will ensure that the music is 100% perfect. If you price this at $25, you'll lose that group of people that were looking to save money, (you could argue that at $25 it's still cheaper than a wedding planner). Not every bride is foolish enough to think that everything will be perfect. The more money you have the more 'perfect' it can be. Those on a budget will opt for a $5 DJ that can get them as close to perfect as their money will allow.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  > you could argue that at $25 it's still cheaper than a wedding planner That's exactly my point, when your competition isn't even anywhere in the neighborhood, you might as well raise your prices. A bride-to-be isn't going to see a $25 wedding DJ app as being expensive; she's going to see it as being 1/10th of what an actual wedding DJ would cause. You said people are only willing to pay for wedding-related services - well, this is replacing a wedding-related service, and you have to consider the competition when determining pricing. And I don't think it's only wedding-related services that cost a lot. There are plenty of purchases associated with weddings (clothing, food, etc.) that are way overpriced. > Not every bride is foolish enough to think that everything will be perfect. They don't all have to be that foolish, there just has to be a big enough group of them that you have a solid customer base. In this situation, I think that's definitely the case.
  - reillyse 14y ago
    Just test it, create three different apps and see which one makes the most money (you could skin them differently or perhaps you might just need to have a different icon).. of course there are other issues such as a reduction in virality (if you depend on it) however you will be in a much better position to estimate once you actually know how much people are willing to pay.
    - helen842000 14y ago
TWAndrews 14y ago
Holy crap yes. My wife works in the wedding industry, and being able to manage the music for your entire wedding is worth way more than $5. A DJ will cost something like 50 - 100x that.
- raphinou 14y ago
  We're considering entering the wedding business with an app. Would your wife consider telling us what she thinks of it? If yes, let me know (see my profile for email), it would be great!
- ckluis 14y ago
  Got married last year. $1200 for the DJ.
  - bosch 14y ago
    Could you explain to me how a DJ is worth that much compared to hitting random or play on a playlist on your MP3 player?
    - ckluis 14y ago
      Ask the wife :) But a DJ is more than the money; they control the tempo/crowd for the other things like garter toss, cake, parent/child dances. I could ask why a developer in California is soo much more than a developer overseas - and they answer would also be they are kind of a like, but you get what you pay for.
apike 14y ago
Intuitively, I'd agree. When we release the upcoming major version (iPad support, advanced queueing, etc) I'd like to try $10. On the other hand, after 1.5 years at $5 we've been trying $2, and revenue has been consistently higher since the change. I suspect this is because it drove us into findable range in the "Top Paid Music" chart, but with no analytics it's frustratingly hard to prove.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  > I suspect this is because it drove us into findable range in the "Top Paid Music" chart, but with no analytics it's frustratingly hard to prove. This is something I hadn't fully considered. One of the biggest expenses in running a wedding-related business is advertising. Unlike other purchases, wedding-related stuff is only purchased once in a lifetime (well, twice or thrice these days in America, but you get the idea). Thus, brides and grooms rely on the opinions and advice of friends - word-of-mouth promotion is key. But ultimately, heavy advertising is the only way to reliably get information about your product out to the general public. And the App Store is a great form of free advertising (well, not counting the cut Apple takes), especially if you make it into one of the "Top" lists.
- SiVal 14y ago
  Sorry for such a naive question, but is it possible to do A/B testing on the Apple App Store? I don't know what their turnaround time is for changes, but do you just change the price, wait a while, change back, wait a while, etc., or do you do something else?
  - apike 14y ago
    The price updates within a day, and you get sales reports daily with a delay of a few hours, and a mix of old and new price sales on the first day. So it's possible, but the feedback loop of the charts means that this kind of measurement is hard to analyze. If you do a test that fares poorly, the next test will probably be affected by that.
  - TheFuture 14y ago
    Actually, I've been considering how to do this for my next app. Not split testing the sale price though, it will be free. (It's just too hard to get people to buy an app outright) I want to split test in-app purchases. I think this should be fairly straightforward to implement. The only downside is in the app store 2 different items would show as top in-app purchases with different prices. People might be upset about that, but I doubt anyone would notice.

rytis 14y ago

I suppose this is business common sense, but, man, it sounds awful from a moral perspective when you put it this way... Really, praying on vulnerable. Just my very subjective opinion.

pyre 14y ago
The same thing happens to parents in general, but specifically, first-time parents because they have 0 experience.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  Yep, baby products are another good example. Initially, the parents are happy, but soon enough they become stressed out, for the long haul. Both emotions play in the retailers' favor. There was a controversy a while back about how Target figured out a teenage girl was pregnant before her dad did (based on her purchases) and started sending her ads for baby products. The reason why they did this is because people don't shop around for the best deals on everyday items, not really. People think they're getting the best deal, but they're actually trapped in their habits. One of the few times when these habits are reshaped is when a baby is born, because newfound parents suddenly start buying a lot of new stuff, but don't have a lot of free time to research the options. By detecting customers who will become parents in the near future and sending them specially targeted advertising/discounts ahead of time for new products that they'll need, you can snag them as customers for years to come.

kaptain 14y ago

People are willing to pay a lot for wedding-related /services/. A lot of people that want to save money on a wedding would buy this because they DON'T want to pay for a wedding planner who will ensure that the music is 100% perfect. If you price this at $25, you'll lose that group of people that were looking to save money, (you could argue that at $25 it's still cheaper than a wedding planner). Not every bride is foolish enough to think that everything will be perfect. The more money you have the more 'perfect' it can be. Those on a budget will opt for a $5 DJ that can get them as close to perfect as their money will allow.

w1ntermute 14y ago
> you could argue that at $25 it's still cheaper than a wedding planner That's exactly my point, when your competition isn't even anywhere in the neighborhood, you might as well raise your prices. A bride-to-be isn't going to see a $25 wedding DJ app as being expensive; she's going to see it as being 1/10th of what an actual wedding DJ would cause. You said people are only willing to pay for wedding-related services - well, this is replacing a wedding-related service, and you have to consider the competition when determining pricing. And I don't think it's only wedding-related services that cost a lot. There are plenty of purchases associated with weddings (clothing, food, etc.) that are way overpriced. > Not every bride is foolish enough to think that everything will be perfect. They don't all have to be that foolish, there just has to be a big enough group of them that you have a solid customer base. In this situation, I think that's definitely the case.
- reillyse 14y ago
  Just test it, create three different apps and see which one makes the most money (you could skin them differently or perhaps you might just need to have a different icon).. of course there are other issues such as a reduction in virality (if you depend on it) however you will be in a much better position to estimate once you actually know how much people are willing to pay.
  - helen842000 14y ago

TWAndrews 14y ago

Holy crap yes. My wife works in the wedding industry, and being able to manage the music for your entire wedding is worth way more than $5. A DJ will cost something like 50 - 100x that.

raphinou 14y ago
We're considering entering the wedding business with an app. Would your wife consider telling us what she thinks of it? If yes, let me know (see my profile for email), it would be great!
ckluis 14y ago
Got married last year. $1200 for the DJ.
- bosch 14y ago
  Could you explain to me how a DJ is worth that much compared to hitting random or play on a playlist on your MP3 player?
  - ckluis 14y ago
    Ask the wife :) But a DJ is more than the money; they control the tempo/crowd for the other things like garter toss, cake, parent/child dances. I could ask why a developer in California is soo much more than a developer overseas - and they answer would also be they are kind of a like, but you get what you pay for.

apike 14y ago

Intuitively, I'd agree. When we release the upcoming major version (iPad support, advanced queueing, etc) I'd like to try $10. On the other hand, after 1.5 years at $5 we've been trying $2, and revenue has been consistently higher since the change. I suspect this is because it drove us into findable range in the "Top Paid Music" chart, but with no analytics it's frustratingly hard to prove.

w1ntermute 14y ago
> I suspect this is because it drove us into findable range in the "Top Paid Music" chart, but with no analytics it's frustratingly hard to prove. This is something I hadn't fully considered. One of the biggest expenses in running a wedding-related business is advertising. Unlike other purchases, wedding-related stuff is only purchased once in a lifetime (well, twice or thrice these days in America, but you get the idea). Thus, brides and grooms rely on the opinions and advice of friends - word-of-mouth promotion is key. But ultimately, heavy advertising is the only way to reliably get information about your product out to the general public. And the App Store is a great form of free advertising (well, not counting the cut Apple takes), especially if you make it into one of the "Top" lists.
SiVal 14y ago
Sorry for such a naive question, but is it possible to do A/B testing on the Apple App Store? I don't know what their turnaround time is for changes, but do you just change the price, wait a while, change back, wait a while, etc., or do you do something else?
- apike 14y ago
  The price updates within a day, and you get sales reports daily with a delay of a few hours, and a mix of old and new price sales on the first day. So it's possible, but the feedback loop of the charts means that this kind of measurement is hard to analyze. If you do a test that fares poorly, the next test will probably be affected by that.
- TheFuture 14y ago
  Actually, I've been considering how to do this for my next app. Not split testing the sale price though, it will be free. (It's just too hard to get people to buy an app outright) I want to split test in-app purchases. I think this should be fairly straightforward to implement. The only downside is in the app store 2 different items would show as top in-app purchases with different prices. People might be upset about that, but I doubt anyone would notice.