Introduction
Businesses dream of becoming the market leader in their specific industry. A market leader influences market trends, the decisions of other market players, and even the customers’ expectations. Market leaders set the pace of the industry in all areas, including pricing.
For example, if a market leader reduces the price of their product, other players have to reduce their price as a response.
If you have similar ambitions, you must first understand what being a market leader means and what pricing strategies market leaders use to achieve dominance in the industry.
Who Is a Market Leader?
The company that has the largest market share in an industry is called the ‘market leader’ of that industry. It means that the company has the highest percentage of sales in that industry compared to other leaders. However, market leaders can be better than their competitors in other areas like profit margin, brand image, supply chain, and customer loyalty. For example, Google is a market leader in the search engine industry with more than 90% market share.
When it comes to pricing, the strategies of the market leader have a major impact on the entire industry. Whenever the leader does something, other players have to adjust their strategies to adapt to this new change.
How Do Companies Become a Market Leader?
Companies that become a market leader understand the market and their customers very well. Becoming a market leader means having the highest sales among all the industry players. So they have to pay attention to what their customers are looking for and how they can provide it to them in the best way. They heavily rely on market data to understand the current trends and customer expectations. They try to retain their existing customers by building brand loyalty and attracting new customers through their aggressive marketing.
Understanding Pricing Strategies Used By Market Leaders
Pricing plays an important role in maintaining a good market share. If you wish to make your business a market leader, you have to understand market leader pricing. Let’s look at the top strategies that market leaders use to price their products.
1. Price Segmentation
Price segmentation means changing the price of a product based on the category of customers and the place. This strategy helps brands that offer their products and services to a diverse set of customers. They cannot charge the same price for everyone because the paying capacity and the expectations of each segment of customers are different.
For example, Netflix subscriptions are cheaper in India than in the US. Also, they offer subscriptions at different price points in the same country according to the number of devices and the quality of the videos.
2. Dynamic Pricing
Under this strategy, the prices of products and services are changed frequently based on real-time data. These companies collect data about demand and supply as and when market changes happen. This is a popular strategy in e-commerce businesses. You may have noticed that the prices of products on websites like Amazon change constantly. Similarly, airlines also use this strategy to price their airline tickets based on the current demand of their customers.
3. Predictive Pricing
Predictive pricing means estimating the upcoming changes in the market and setting your future prices in advance. For this strategy to work, you need to have a strong AI-based tool that can predict future prices based on the currently available data. This strategy can help you stay ahead of your competitors if you do it correctly.
These tools use historical data and current data to predict what the future holds. The more data you have, the better the prediction will be. However, you must note that it is not possible to predict the market with 100% accuracy. You must acknowledge that there is room for error despite using AI-powered tools. Sudden, unexpected events can disrupt the predictions easily, and when that happens, you must learn to adapt. For example, COVID-19 disrupted many industries, such as travel. It was an unexpected event that made all future predictive data irrelevant.
4. Yield Management Pricing
Yield management pricing is used mostly by businesses that have a fixed supply. This can include hotels, airlines, and banquet halls. For example, no matter how much the demand is, the hotel only has a limited number of rooms to provide the customer. The supply is fixed, so these businesses have to focus on pricing the existing products in a way that gives maximum sales and profits.
These businesses use data to use their supply in the best way possible. For example, a hotel will decide the prices of their rooms by looking at holidays, long weekends, and summer vacations for children. They use AI-powered software tools to get the relevant data about the market. You may have observed that websites that provide hotel booking services change the booking rates frequently. They collect real-time data about their customers, current market trends, and current demand.
Cab booking services, airlines, and concert venues also use this strategy to generate the most sales and profits.
Summing Up
Market leader pricing strategies help businesses get the market leader status faster. There are multiple strategies that businesses use. The best strategy depends on the nature of your business, your budget, and your goals. For example, yield management pricing is great for airlines, but it is of no use to e-commerce platforms.
If you want to get helpful insights about pricing trends, the pricing strategies of your competitors, and seller-level analysis, consider getting the pricing intelligence tools provided by Rubick.ai. These tools can provide helpful data that will allow you to make the best pricing decisions based on actual data.
