What’s Your “What The Heck” Price?
I’m establishing a new term: the “what the heck” price point. It’s defined pretty simply, and once I explain it, I’m sure it will be instantly familiar and make a lot of sense.
My “what the heck” price point is around $100. It’s the price I feel comfortable dropping on a new product, more specifically tech hardware, and if it doesn’t work out — I don’t feel too bad about it. By “doesn’t work out,” I mean, the company goes out of business, the product fails to live up to its promise, or the hardware fails and I end up with a doorstop, etc.
Examples: I’ve gone through two cheap-ass Belkin routers over a few years. Both only cost $30. So it doesn’t really bug me that they died. I just bought a new one until I saved up enough to get an Apple Airport Extreme.
The Netflix Roku box I picked up last year cost $99. Since it’s right at my “what the heck” price point, I felt comfortable taking the jump on unproven, new technology. Amazingly, it turned out to be one of the best pieces of hardware I’ve ever bought, as it was recently upgraded to support HD and Amazon content, and is easier to use than our Apple TV.
A lot of Mac products (contrary to the stereotype) are right around that $100 mark. Wireless keyboard: $79. Mac OS X updates: $129. iWork: $79.
Then there’s a device like the Kindle. At nearly $300, I don’t feel comfortable taking the plunge. Although I don’t think Amazon is going anywhere, I do feel the product could be improved, there’s an off chance it could fail, and any imperfections would just bug me more since the initial price is higher than $100. Then there’s the additional cost of all the reading content. But if the Kindle was $99: well, I’d buy one today.
And here we come to the news that inspired this post: Sony cut a version of its eBook reader to $199. That’s pretty darned awesome to see that price drop, but it’s still a hundred dollars more than my personal “what the heck” price.
Lasty: sure I’m willing to spend more than $100 on stuff (a MacBook for $1299 or an iPhone for $199) but then my criteria is more stringent: not a V1 product, I’ll read reviews of the product before purchasing, will shop around to get the best deal, will expect more from the product, etc. Instead of “what the heck” my feeling is more like “this better be worth it.”
What’s your “what the heck” price?
When I first got my iPhone I swore I wouldn’t buy any apps. But then I got hooked on the 99 cent and $1.99 apps. So I guess you could say that for a mobile app, $1.99 is my “what the heck price” (actually it might be $2.99).
Kindle is an interesting one. I think my what the heck price is $99 like yours, with the added hurdle that I’m wary of “yet another platform/device” and would need to overcome that.
I’ve been wanting to get my daughter an iPod Touch. And right now it’s just way too expensive for me to consider for a kid. I do think that I’d seriously consider one for her if it was $99 or lower.
I don’t subscribe to many magazines these days, but I’ve always enjoyed Wired. So when they sent me a subscription card for the $10 Wired subscription, I said “what the heck”. I think I got a couple of other magazines at the 5 or 10 rate.
There’s probably other good examples, but I can’t think of them right now.
True, iPhone apps is a whole new category of price sensitivity. For me it’s about the same — 99 cents or $1.99 I can drop easily but I start checking out the reviews when it gets into the 3 — 5 dollar range.
I’d love to see what kind of apps a kid would install on their own Touch.
Kalea’s favorite games right now are:
Tap Tap Revolution 2 (free, and free song downloads)
Sally’s Spa ($.99)
Scoops ($.99, but I got it free on “National Ice Cream Day” when they had a promotion)
Koa’s favorite games are:
Farm Animals ($.99, pictures of animals, animal sounds and a quiz to match sound and animal)
Koi Pond ($.99, touch the fish, lol)
True, iPhone apps is a whole new category of price sensitivity. For me
it’s about the same — 99 cents or $1.99 I can drop easily but I start
checking out the reviews when it gets into the 3 — 5 dollar range.
I’d love to see what kind of apps a kid would install on their own
Touch.
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I’m going to say $15. I can buy many things for $15 each without thinking much about it.
This week, I bought an 8 GB flash drive for $15 while still half-asleep. I’m pretty pleased with it.
I second your $100 price point. (Especially since I recently spent about a month watching a lens that I wanted to buy on Amazon fluctuate between $101 and $105 until I finally pulled the trigger at $99.95.) For some reason there seems to be a mental barrier at $100 where it goes from ‘this thing better be awesome’ to ‘oh well, at least I got some use out of it’.
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