Price Points

I really don't know anything about "Price Points."

I'm certain that there's a fairly well established discipline that melds economic theory with behavioral science to explain at what point people will be spurred into action.

Call it cost/benefit. Call it risk/reward. Whatever.

I'm not much of a consumer, but I do occasionally get feelings that have to be requited.

Oh, and I buy things, too, sometimes. That desire tends to be inelastic, as opposed to the diminishing elasticity related to the other desires.

I'm not really certain that I've ever been intrigued to buy an item from a retailer just because it dropped its price, other than that DiGiorno Pizza and chicken combo that was on sale a few weeks ago, yet wasn't last week.

Last week, I chose not to buy it, as I made a decision, on some level that's not entirely clear to me, that the cholseterol hit wasn't worth the retail price du jour.

Or is it Di Gior?

Actually, it wasn't the sale price that got me to buy it initially. In fact, prior to that day, I'd never tried one of their products. It just happened that on the day in question the product was prominently displayed and the price seemed reasonable. I never had any idea what the usual price was.

Best of all, both the pizza and chicken actually tasted good. Despite the fact that I'm very far removed from my Bronx roots, I really enjoy good pizza and accept both the short term consequence of heart burn and the longer term consequence of death.

There must be some kind of price point buried in there somewhere, especially when it comes to those longer term considerations.

What I discovered today, though, was that there was a clear price point for my "Option to Profit" book.

Until about 12 AM PST today, you can get it for free to read on your Kindle.

Amazon must know what they're doing, because in just the first 8 hours, more people have demonstrated that their price point is "free," at least when it comes to what I'm offering.

That seems odd, not because there's any great value to what I'm offering, but because at the very same time, for some inexplicable reason, people are signing up to get this blog delivered to their Kindle. They're willing to pay a monthly fee for what they can read for free, or more than likely, choose not to read at all.

This shouldn't come as a complete surprise, since a couple of months ago, the book became enriolled in Kindle's lending library program, where Amazon Prime members could download the book for free.

Free.

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Case of the Mondays

I spent more than my usual share of time this weekend re-watching old movies on Comedy Central.

If you read yesterday's blog, "Market Crashers," you'd already know one of the movies. Despite what your mother may have said about how TV will kill your brain cells, I find it useful for creative inspiration. Besides, that's much easier than having to actually interact with anyone.

Although I have no doubt that I am beginning to lose some of those brain cells, I'll never pin it on my viewing habits. One of the really great things about starting to lose some of those brain cells is that regardless of how many times you see a movie or a show, somehow it still manages to surprise. I'm sure that I've written that before, but even then, it's still funny, in a poignant sort of way, to me.

See what I mean.

That was also the case watching the cult classic "Ofice Space," on Comedy Central, the cable station where commercial failures go for new life.

It probably works out that way because it's really hard to smoke weed in the movie theater during the first run of movies that go on to become cult classics. It's also hard to make it to the theater if you started smoking weed beforehand, thinking that the weed is way overpriced at the concession stand.

The cult, in case you didn't know, smokes lots of weed. There's no other plausible explanation for why the mere mention of "TPS Reports" elicits spasms of laughter.

Right.

As opposed to much of the world, and definitely the downtrodden characters in "Office Space," I always look forward to Mondays. In fact, even when I was a contributing member of society, I had nothing against Mondays.

These days, the only Mondays that I don't care for are the Federal holidays, with all due respect to dead Presidents, laborers and others deserving of retail sales events. It's all simply because the stock markets are closed.

Otherwise, Mondays are like a re-birth.

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