[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: Academic Pricing??




>That would be a VERY nice thing because I know *I* can't afford the full
>priced version.  It would give you the opportunity to sell a lot more
>copies of the product to people that may not be able to pay the full
>price, especially since it's going to be sold off-the-shelf.
>
>Richard Martin
>zomby@infose.com
>http://www.infose.com/zomby/
>
>

     One solution to this problem which I think the people at ARDI may be
able to work out is to comission a student price rate, but only through
student book stores at colleges.  Almost every town has a college nearby,
and they always check for student IDs at college bookstores.  It is easy to
know if a bookstore is associated with a college (especially since many of
them are owned by nationwide chains), which would cut out almost all work on
ARDI's part.  In fact, all they'd have to do is tell college bookstores
normal and student prices, and then let the bookstores duke it out with the
consumer.  College bookstores would also give student pricing to high school
students, that is unless told otherwise by the manufacturer (some companies
I've heard of don't give discounts to students of public (free) schools.)
     I honestly can say that I think you'll find most of your customers in
acadamea, since academic institutions have by in large adopted Macs, while
individuals have adopted PCs (this IS a generalization.)  This has
created a compatibility issue which I know many students in my high school
and my college felt.  ARDI, knowing this, has to think "Well, if a large
portion of our customers will be student/faculty, and we give this out for a
dirt cheap price, we may end up selling a lot of copies, but would we be
able to support ourselves as well as we would if we charged full price and
sold fewer copies?"  It's a tough question to answer.  But, as far as the
difficulties behind student pricing in terms of work load, I just thought
I'd suggest the college bookstore-only
idea as a potential solution.

--Gene who won't benefit from academic discounts too much longer (thank
goodness!)