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All that this tells me is that they were underpriced to start with. In any market where I sell a product and other people can sell an equivalent product, the m
by jeremysmyth 14y ago
All that this tells me is that they were underpriced to start with.
In any market where I sell a product and other people can sell an equivalent product, the market settles around a value that varies only as much as reputation allows. If company X has been around for 15 years and you've already bought several of their products (at your current company or a previous one) and found them reliable, that's worth a premium. Otherwise, not so much.
Software components are an even more challenging product to sell, because your customers are sometimes also your biggest competitors; if I see a vastly overpriced component that I know would take me two and a half days (max) to code and test, I'm not going to pay through the nose to buy from an unknown vendor. Add to that "not-invented-here" syndrome, misplaced management concerns about ownership and support, and you end up with components being a hard sell in some orgs.
So, like I say, I can only assume they were underpriced to begin with, and I'm glad to see they're doing research to find their correct price point.
- pytrin 14y agoOP here - the main point is that most indie software is underpriced, mostly because the developer fears not making sales. We have thousands of publishers on our platform, and 99% of them underprice their software. I was giving an overview of why they shouldn't
- orangethirty 14y agoYou also have to consider another point altogether, because it applies to your platform. Developers might underprice their software because they do not want to spend time supporting it, but still want to make money off of it. It sounds crazy, but I have yet to meet a developer who is crazy about customer service. By increasing prices, they are also increasing the amount of customer service they might be obligated to provide.
- rwallace 14y agoThe consensus seems to be that this strategy backfires: often the most cheapskate customers are also the most demanding when it comes to support. The only real way to reduce your support burden is to make your money from fewer customers, which means raising prices (whether by a flat increase or by charging for support - the latter works well in some markets where you can release the code for free and make support the thing you charge for).
- adambenayoun 14y agoCouldn't agree more with what you said.