Comments on: Experiment: name-your-own-price merch

By: debcha

debcha — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:13:49 +0000

That’s a good point, Mike – that it adds a lot of uncertainty to the social aspects of the transaction. Justin mentioned Tim Fite’s response to lowball offers – it’s easy to see how the lack of online anonymity means that someone could get uncomfortable if they really couldn’t afford much. Allen suggests that bands would make more money doing this, but your comment makes me wonder about how much of that may be due to subtle social coercion, rather than just having a frank, fixed-price transaction.

By: Mike Epstein

Mike Epstein — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 05:14:23 +0000

I like the idea in theory, but I also think it has the potential to make people uncomfortable. I, as a consumer, wouldn’t want to be burdened with deciding a fair price on the spot. It’s also different when dealing with someone face to face than it is online (e.g., Radiohead). What if you want to offer less than the person in front of you? What if you want to offer more?

By: debcha

debcha — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:23:01 +0000

Thanks for the links, Dan! And yeah, there’s a reason I chose an ELP song to ‘illustrate’ the post – I bought three copies of Straight Talk on Raising Kids that I insisted on paying for, and Grant pressed a fourth on me (it promptly got mailed off to a music-loving friend).

By: danielpaluska

danielpaluska — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:34:57 +0000

i'm totally in favor of alternative pricing models. set your own price certainly worked for radiohead. can it work for a small band? not sure, but we (electric laser people) always "sell" our cds radiohead style (whatever you want to pay) at our concerts. this is also due to the fact that not many people actually want cds anymore. in general, i believe in the freedom of information and a copyright free society. as a band, you should recognize the power of the web as infinite free distribution and use that in your favor. physical merch is a different story... right now, bands tend to go into debt to make recordings and then expect to recover their debt by selling you something they can distribute for free (mp3s anyways). this is flawed. imagine a chef cooking a giant banquet before insuring there were any guests that wished to pay for food. some reading-> Why Napster is Right; With no intellectual property, is everyone a chef?

By: Justin Snow

Justin Snow — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:27:30 +0000

I’d be really curious to see how this goes in real life. I know Tim Fite does this with his artwork. He’s got a book of drawings and prints and such and he tells people to just make an offer. It usually works really well for him. But on one or two occassions, when someone has low balled him, I have heard him be like, “Eeehhh” and then the person ups their price. It seems like a great way for him to make some extra cash while on tour, especially with something that doesn’t really have a fixed cost/profit factor like art.

By: debcha

debcha — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:05:12 +0000

One variant of this that I’ve seen is to set a floor on the price, typically not selling it lower than cost – with that approach, each sale makes a profit, and everything below ‘list price’ is a sale you would not have made otherwise. But I agree that there isn’t enough data, and it’s probably highly variable – that’s why I suggested it as an experiment, not as a prescription.

By: Aaroncharmanders

Aaroncharmanders — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:28:25 +0000

I’m a bit wary of this in certain situations. Smaller acts are usually of this mindset in large regard and when they’re not the merch is usually pretty cheap as it is.

LPs are usually $10 or under, shirts rarely post for more than $10 dollars and many bands are just trying to sustain themselves on tour.

Although the idea is potentially a good one there definitely needs to be some research, or hard numbers to back it up. Of course, those numbers would have to reflect viewership, usual volume of merch sold, etc., etc.

A good idea, but not necessarily correct, but then again, it may be.

Good post.

Chairs,
Aaron