Pricing Power

  

Categories: Company Management

See: Inelastic Demand Curve. See: Elastic Demand Curve.

When you have a lot of pricing power, it means that you can raise prices with impunity, or rather, with almost no diminution in sales volumes.

The ultimate example? Microsoft back in the day, with its Windows operating system. If you didn’t have Windows, your computer...didn’t work. And if it didn’t, then your office didn’t work. You couldn’t really bill. You couldn’t track. You couldn’t model. You couldn’t do much of anything other than stare at an abacus, scribble with a pencil, and count with your socks off.

So Windows raised prices from about 80 bucks a unit when it started to truly dominate, and with virtually no extra (useful) features, it gradually over the course of about 5 years raised prices to live closer to $200 a unit. Huge margin expansion. Huge dominance. Huge monopolistic pricing power above and beyond anything the world had previously seen.

And then Bill cured malaria, so all's good.

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Finance: What is Elastic v Inelastic Dem...19 Views

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And finance Allah Shmoop What is elastic versus in elastic

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demand Okay well here's your underwear band I think the

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bane of wedgies super wedgies atomic wedgies and over the

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head mega glop wedgies all around the globe Well what

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do they all have in common Stretchy nous The band

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stretches and moves and gives goodness Well think about the

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elastic as representing the marketplace for a paperback copy of

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Moby Dick It's the same new paperback copy Freshly minted

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with that you know new book smell It's the same

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product whether you bite it Amazon or Barnes and Noble

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or anywhere else for both people you know who shop

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anywhere else and or Barnes and Noble Or at walmart

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dot com which has thirty for more buyers than Barnes

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and Noble So yeah that's the second place winner in

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the book war saga Well Moby Dick here we go

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Yeah same total commodity product and lots of sellers of

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it So the volumes sold depending almost entirely on price

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rather than well if the price of that book drops

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like two percent while you just buy it wherever wherever

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it's sold cheaper right total commodity So the curves move

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around like elastic A buyer will go to the area

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of least resistance price resistance And yeah it's like you

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know what happens in that atomic super wedgie thing So

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if elastic means no pricing power of the cellar and

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likely very low margins for the cellar and a world

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where the buyer has all the power than what in

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elastic All right well it's when you try to do

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an atomic wedgie on some dude wearing steel underwear like

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you know this guy sirloin of beef Well then it

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doesn't move The material is in elastic An elastic would

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be the sole remaining copy of Moby Dick signed by

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Melville himself and still with a little whale blubber oil

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on the manuscript cover there There's only one copy in

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the world and hundreds of billionaires all around the world

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who read or maybe just care about important literature would

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love that copy Could they sell it for fifty bucks

02:08

A thousand one hundred thousand A million shore Probably Sure

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sure sure All the power then is with the one

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seller of that product who can charge almost anything they

02:17

want when they go to sell it So think of

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any elastic demand is being things you can't live without

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Like that last drink of water fore a parched human

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traveller in the desert You know prices go up or

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down like this curve or line thing here and it

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won't matter Buyers will pay and sellers will reap the

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powered rewards of any elasticity Pull on a rubber band

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for a while and it'll move It'll adjust your pressure

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and if you crinkle up a thousand of these bad

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boys and melt him to gather well they'll bounce for

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a long time I think of them as being elastic

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They move a lot just like markets Okay so let's

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think about oil What about that Yeah highly elastic when

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there's lots of supply While the highly competitive industry will

02:58

offer a gallon of gas for less and less and

03:00

less and less until it has sold out all the

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marginal gas it can supply and still at least break

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even All things considered so typically highly elastic industry sell

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commodities where there's no difference in buying a gallon of

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gas from Shell or Chevron or BP Or we've got

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gas dot com or whoever So now go to the

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other end of the street and try pulling on this

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two by four Yeah you can pull all day long

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at eight going nowhere unless you're Superman It is in

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elastic Any elastic demand revolves around things that are irreplaceable

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like those thirty five acres on the beach in Malibu

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only exist in one place and a property like that

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comes up for sale maybe once in a decade So

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it carries any elasticity in its sales process in that

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the seller can put almost any price at once on

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the property and will likely get it The same applies

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to rare vintage Ferraris The signed football used to score

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the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl or elite plastic

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surgeons for wealthy widows of billionaires Economists being economy you

04:04

know I want to make sure that elasticity is something

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they can graph So the equation for elasticity goes something

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like this percent change in quantity to manage over percent

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change in the price There we go Well Q represents

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the quantity and P represents the price There See very

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cleverly named Take two points the quantity at point A

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and then the quantity at point B like note those

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then check the price at both of those points and

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you figure out the percentage change and we'll just get

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the ratio Well the answer gives you a measure of

04:34

the products elasticity Any number bigger than one is considered

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to be elastic meaning It's kind of more commodity ish

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The bigger the number the more elastic it is Like

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water A normal water in any normal city is pretty

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elastic Figures less than one answered like a point five

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point o three Two would be any elastic like the

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smaller the figure the more any elastic the more rare

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Ferrari buyer like it is Well the math may seem

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a tad complicated here but when graphed out well it

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makes a lot of sense Visually the concepts are easy

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to conceive So check out these curves Yeah not very

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curvy Other factors besides simple supply and demand can play

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into whether prices are elastic or any elastic Grover Bio

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Genetics Inc provides a drug that cures a certain kind

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of tale Cancer In dogs The drug is relatively simple

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The manufacture Any moderately competent lab could produce it But

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it's the consumer who feels the verticality of the demand

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curves that is a dog owner whose pooch is suffering

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from painful tale cancer will pay nearly anything to get

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the drug needed to keep their dog alive and licking

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their face will demand for the drug is very any

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elastic Then right Rover Bio genetics can jack up the

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price to whatever they want a jacket to and people

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will pay it well The high price of the drug

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has nothing to do with the manufacturing cost Remember the

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drug is relatively easy to make It has to do

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with the elasticity of the demand for it Biogenetic skin

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charged a high price basically because they can welcome to

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the world of supply demand economics in the elasticity Yeah

06:07

other complications can come into effect as well For instance

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elasticity can change on one demand curves That is to

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say different forces come into play in each curve area

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when determining the demand elasticity Varying considerations impact consumers at

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different points like you find out that you can get

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a cheap generic equivalent of the tail cancer drug in

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Mexico So your pack up little snookums and head down

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to Tijuana The instructions on the drugs say to give

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the pop two pills orally and then make sure to

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give her plenty of water But the guy's front desk

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warned you that they've had some plumbing issues lately and

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you might not want to drink the tap water So

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you have to feed snookums bottled water Teo you know

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take with her pills Now the minibar has bottled water

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It cost nine dollars for this little thing Nine dollars

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Can you believe it Yes Nine You don't want to

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leave Snow comes alone in the hotel room So you're

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tempted Teo Just pay the high minibar price But if

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you just leave the room for a few minutes while

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you khun go to the hotel bar You know they

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sell bottled water for still a whopping six dollars each

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but at least he saved three bucks And then if

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you're willing to take a longer trip while you can

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you know uber toe walmart to Mexico and by water

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in bulk for less than a dollar a bottle So

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like why wouldn't you do that Yeah because well we're

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all lazy but snow comes Yeah let's give her a 00:07:24.846 --> [endTime] little kiss In the world

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