Posts by: Kyle T. Westra

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Maintaining Pricing Excellence During Currency Depreciation

By Kyle T. Westra March 4, 2016

It is preferable to maintain or carefully increase prices in a clear, methodical way, only decreasing cost slowly and with much consideration. Careful analysis is required to take into account different SKUs, product lines, geographies, and customer segments, adjusting prices in the way that fits best each unique category.

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Incentives Aren’t Everything

By Kyle T. Westra February 4, 2016

Therefore, it is important to design a sales incentive structure that puts heavy emphasis on company profit, if that is indeed what your company seeks. Your company probably does. Shifting a company from a revenue or volume sales mindset to a profit mindset can take a good deal of time and effort, but it is an important shift, and one that shows real results.

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Does Surge Pricing Have an Image Problem?

By Kyle T. Westra January 3, 2016

Clear communication about surge pricing is good customer service but without conveying its benefits, Uber is increasing the price sensitivity of its riders. This is a well-known effect of overemphasizing price in marketing communications. But price is only one reason that customers choose Uber. Why not focus on the benefits of surge pricing?

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Arbitrage With Unofficial Exchange Rates

By Kyle T. Westra December 3, 2015

Much of this has to do with poor economic policy, the low price of oil (upon which much of Venezuela’s exports depend), and the strong dollar. In such situations, dollars become even more valuable to hoard, which in turn creates more inflation in the bolivar, leading to a positive feedback loop. But how does this lead to shortages of something as basic as toilet paper?

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Groupon’s Third Act

By Kyle T. Westra December 3, 2015

Both Williams and Mason are frank about past mistakes. They grew too quickly. They didn’t respond appropriately to criticism. Accounting was a mess. The business model required too much labor in place of operational efficiency and scalable systems. But both are optimistic about the core problem that the company is trying to solve: e-commerce for small and local businesses.

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Customer Centric Pricing

By Kyle T. Westra November 5, 2015

Without a strong understanding of these customers, as well as the effort to continuously reevaluate this understanding, companies will see their share slip away to better positioned competition. Pricing requires just as much strategy as product; the right product at the wrong price is no longer the right product.

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Airlines and Innovation

By Kyle T. Westra October 6, 2015

Whereas airlines are a particularly visible example of an industry struggling with price structures and value offerings, every company in every industry should pay close attention to their customers and what their customers value. Airlines are a particularly visible example of an industry struggling to think creatively about how best to capture the right price for the value provided.

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Spotify and Monetizing What Can be Accessed for Free

By Kyle T. Westra September 11, 2015

At a certain level, the method of accessing a certain music track should be a commodity — it is the track that matters, not the delivery mechanism. Instead of differentiating on price, platforms are trying to do so with exclusive artist agreements and various extras for the consumer, as well as additional marketing support for the artist.

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The Art of Discounting

By Kyle T. Westra October 1, 2010

Activate Dormant Customers Through Strategic Discounting In today’s erratic economy, the key to growing your business involves activating dormant customers by using…

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About The Author

ktw
Kyle T. Westra is a Manager at Wiglaf Pricing. His areas of focus include pricing transformations, new product pricing, commercial policy, and pricing software. Most recently to Wiglaf Pricing, Kyle worked in project management, business systems analysis, and marketing analysis, starting his career in global strategy at a foreign policy think tank. He has extensive experience in ecommerce, sales strategy, economic analysis, and change management. His Amazon bestselling book about how technological trends are affecting pricing and commercial strategy is entitled The New Invisible Hand: Five Revolutions in the Digital Economy. Kyle is a Certified Pricing Professional (CPP). He holds an MBA with distinction from the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at DePaul University and a BA in Political Science and Economics from Tufts University.