Chapter 19

Since the first day I opened my shop at A&C Mall, one of the funniest thing I see in my shop is customers trying to negotiate prices down, when 5 minutes before, someone else came in and thought our products prices for the quality of product is quite low. You have people who compare our products and therefore prices to others at Makola. Others want to take the product apart by ingredients and try to estimate our costs based on estimated ingredient prices to justify why products cost too much. While some compare NAYA to Body Shop, Shea Moisture, Aveeno, or Nivea. What you realize across all of this is the customer's perception of your brand. All the above brands cost differently and are in different segments of the market. Sometimes it's justified based on similarities between your products and others, and other times it's purely for the customers own gain. People are happy when a business does a sale and reduces prices by 20, 30 or 50 percent without realizing businesses can only afford to do that if their costs are already paid. Secondly only big business can afford those discount rates consistently because it's already baked into their prices and volumes. Small businesses don't have that luxury. Between time value of money and volumes of products sold, considering all their costs, from rent to transportation to marketing, discounts just eat into your profits if not planned properly.