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The best businesses are the ones that completely rethink what an industry provides and how it provides it. Fortune just ran a story on two brothers in Maine who came up with a new way to market their business. They’re lobster wholesalers who established a company called Catch a Piece of Maine. The business sells the rights to a specific lobster trap and everything that stumbles into it. Customers get online updates on their fortunes and have their haul FedEx’d to them. The traps cost $2995 each and guarantee 40 lobsters.
That’s $75 a lobster – more than triple the price for lobster at a regular seafood store! But the business has sold over 200 traps so far to customers all across the US. Why? Because it provides an experience, not just a product. How much more fun to tell guests they’re dining on lobsters picked from your very own trap off the coast of Maine than from the local fish market? Far better bragging rights.
The brothers have figured out how to provide that elusive engaging experience that customers seek.
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Aug. 6, 2008 at 8:13 am
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Posted by: Scott Pester
Mar. 12, 2009 at 3:49 pm
I remember reading the above posting about creating a unique customer experience in a business where it is not typical.
Well, add the following to that list. I am a subscriber to Inc. magazine and in the March 2009 edition on page 19 there is an interesting little column on how a San Fran based winemaker, Crushpad, was using the consumers focus on the failing economy to create an interesting marketing opportunity.
The essence of their offering is that you buy a stock market futures contract on a bottle of wine. You reserve a bottle of the 2007 ‘Bailout’ Napa Cabernet for delivery in late summer at $39/bottle. Mark the value of the Dow on that day. If the market (Dow Jones) goes up, celebrate by drinking a $39 bottle of wine…but if it goes down, then for every 100 point drop you will get a $2 refund (down to $9 a bottle)
I like red wine….but I don’t gamble really…however their marketing angle here is just compelling enough to roll the dice:) (Although I wish I had reserved earler!)
What I am most interested in is, like the lobster above, what would the wine normally sell for and how much extra money are they able to extract (assuming an up market for the Dow) by creating this clever consumer experience. Come August 14th, all those who chose to gamble (including Crushpad) will know if their risk paid off.
Posted by: Lisa S
Mar. 13, 2009 at 7:34 am
Hi Scott – this is a neat idea! I wonder how many other products we could come up with a unique pricing strategy for. And then, of course, how many companies would actually implement those pricing strategies, given they take a leap of faith and are rather non-traditional.
So the big question – did you role the dice? If so, count me for sharing a bottle of red wine in the summer, assuming you’ve done well on your purchase. (Although the stock market has been up for the last 3 days – and all the analysts are excitedly mummuring ‘bull market?!’)