Marketing in Tri-Cities, WA

First, a little about me.  I’m not a coffee drinker, so instead of stopping at Espresso World on the way into work for a carmelly-coffee thing, I run by McDonald’s and get a large diet Coke with extra ice.  Our local McDonalds’ offered an a la carte large soft drink for 89 cents.  With tax it became 96 cents.  This was ideal.  I would go through the drive-though, hand the cashier a dollar and ask them to put the four leftover cents in the charity drop.  Next window, the drink is in hand and I’m on my way. 

On Monday, the same day the Monopoly game kicked off (I do love the Monopoly game), they raised the price on an a la carte large drink to 99 cents.  So, now it’s $1.07 with tax which means I have to hand over a dollar and a dime and there are only 3 cents leftover for the Ronald McDonald House.  What a pain!  Of course I can afford it, it’s only 11 more cents.  But it’s annoying to get a dollar and a dime and have the charity wait 100 more days for one more dollar. This is poor pricing, plain and simple.  I can’t be the only one who feels this way.  I asked the cashier at McDonalds if this was nationwide move, or just Tri-Cities-wide.  She said she thought it was local.

How does this relate to real estate? The pricing of houses makes a ton of difference.  I’m a fan of pricing on the 5’s or 0’s ($180,000 or $185,000) myself, because of the double exposure it brings. But the extraordinary Ardell at Rain City Guide has a great point, too.

So, think about what’s convenient for the consumer, and what’s going to sell the product.  It might not look right on paper, but if it feels right to the customer, you’ll eventually sell more, and at the end of the day, that’s the job.