Mohammed's breezy, informal account of a range of pricing strategies takes as its starting point the realization that different "customers place different values on the same products." With this in mind, Mohammed (Internet Marketing
) recommends a variety of strategies that will attract customers with different product evaluations and yield different profit margins. With emphasis on familiar consumer practices like quantity discounting, early-bird discounts and mixed bundling, Mohammed describes, for example, setting a high initial price to capture extra profits from early adopters, then reducing prices to attract other customers. Alternately, he notes, music and book stores "often take a contrary pricing approach" and give lower prices to their first customers. Mohammed writes clearly but does not offer enough direction on when to choose one strategy over its opposite. Though the book targets anyone who sets prices, including managers, it focuses narrowly on price discrimination without an analysis of the integration of pricing into general marketing or strategy. Nor does Mohammed cover how to estimate the cost and demand factors necessary to evaluate different price schemes. The book is too basic for experienced marketing professionals, but novices interested in price discrimination will find this an easy-to-understand introduction. (Oct. 18)
