Tips On How Much to Charge For CDs

In some industries, pricing an item for sale is a pretty straightforward task. You simply base the sales price on the cost of the item.

For example, a guy I know used to sell construction fasteners - which is a fancy term for screws - and the company he worked for had detailed price lists for every box of screws they sold. The lists had several columns of pricing for each item based on the quantity being ordered. If you bought a single box, you were charged the highest price. If you bought a whole pallet, you got a discount and if you bought ten pallets, the discount was even deeper.

All of these prices were based on the physical cost of producing the screws in factories overseas, shipping them across the Pacific Ocean and then delivering them via rail to various distribution sites. However, those factors are all hard, tangible costs that you can easily enter into a spreadsheet and analyze.

How do you put a price on your creativity or sheer genius?

Sure, there are some fixed costs of doing business that you can factor into some pricing structures. If you are going to distribute a CD or DVD, you'll have the unit cost of each disc which includes duplication, screen printing on each disc, the packaging and shipping. You will need to figure out these costs first to base your price on. However, I usually pay less than $5.00 per unit for all of that.

So, how do you arrive at a fair price for your intellectual properties?

If you've been paying attention to me for very long, you already know the answer. Split test it!

Another friend of mine split tested the price on one of his recent products. He tested price points of $47, $67 and $97. Think you know which one tested best? A lot of you will be surprised - but probably not those of you who actually split test - that the $97 price point got the best response. Think about how powerful that piece of information is right there. Not only did he find out what his customers would pay, but he also found out a very valuable thing about them as well.

They place a high value on his work.

Finding out what to charge for his work was worth the trouble of split testing, but finding out his customers' opinions about the value of it was invaluable.