[Leica] Re: M8's high price

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 10:27 AM -0500 1/13/07, Lawrence Zeitlin wrote:
>A Leica fable re the price of the M8. (and Rolex watches, Mont Blanc 
>pens, and all cosmetic products.)
>
>We have a friend, a dealer in modern paintings in New York's trendy 
>uptown art market, who is a firm believer in negative price 
>elasticity. Since it is almost impossible to tell the absolute 
>artistic merit of a contemporary painting, most of her customers use 
>price as a surrogate cue to quality. "You get what you pay for" 
>seems to be the mantra of the affluent customers who patronize her 
>studio. When a painting doesn't sell after a reasonable amount of 
>time, she raises its price by several thousand dollars. A customer, 
>returning to the studio, notices that the painting is now more 
>expensive than it was on the last visit, concludes that the painting 
>must be worth having since the price is going up. Out comes the 
>checkbook and the painting changes hands before the price increases 
>again. The dealer makes a nice profit. The customer hangs the 
>painting on the living room wall, confident that everyone will 
>admire his/her good taste. "It costs more but I'm worth it."
>
>The painting may be a piece of crap but it doesn't matter. Everyone is 
>happy.
>
>Larry Z

A number of years ago I had a property (bare lot) I wanted to sell, 
in a generally desirable location. I put it up at a certain number 
after looking at the market and talking with agents, then got a few 
offers at about 15% lower than I wanted. After two months I raised 
the price by 30% (the general market hadn't changed) and I sold it at 
asking price within days.

-- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
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