GTDC’s 2016 EMEA: Do List Prices Matter? After all, no-one pays list.

 Making international #channel pricing work: @PaulCharlton of @pricingfactory presenting at #GTDCEMEA16. There was a great question from Howard Davies of @Contextworld at the GTDC meeting in EMEA in June: Do list prices matter? Here’s Part 2 and the start of what more I could have said at the GTDC had time allowed:

No-one pays list. That may be true – particularly in tech – but it doesn’t mean to say that  list price is not important. From the vendor’s perspective, it would be impossible (not economic) to manage each and every net price, whereas it is possible (economic) to manage list + discount, particularly when the discounts are policy driven and not an outcome of a “you gotta haggle†discounting strategy.

And from a customer perspective, they don’t think just in terms of net price. They’re smart enough to be able to envisage list minus discount = net, and understand the trajectory of all three of those parameters over time, part number by part number, product category by product category, solution by solution, deal by deal. Why? Because your sales behavior has forced them to.

So if you think that list prices don’t matter, you – vendor sales – are most likely being out-thought by your customers’ Purchasing departments. But there is more to it than that. More to follow.

Thank you Howard! Great question!