Free Webinar
Pricing Horror Stories: What Haunts Your Margins (Halloween Special)
When pricing logic looks rational on paper, and quietly destroys value at scale
We’re unearthing the pricing mistakes that just won’t stay buried
Most pricing failures don’t start with bad intent or weak analysis. They start with clean logic applied too narrowly, a competitor rule that runs unchecked, a promotion mechanic customers interpret differently, a value calculation that ignores behavioural response. Individually, these decisions look reasonable. At scale, they compound into margin erosion, customer backlash, or structural damage that takes years to unwind.
This session surfaces what actually breaks when pricing decisions leave the real world. Rather than frameworks or theory, it draws on concrete cases where pricing mechanisms behaved exactly as designed, and still produced catastrophic outcomes. The focus is not on novelty, but on decision discipline, where leaders lose control, why organizations miss the warning signs, and what these failures reveal about how pricing systems should really be governed.
What You'll Learn
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Why rule-based pricing fails fastest when no one owns the boundary conditions
Unchecked algorithms don’t need to be sophisticated to cause damage. They only need autonomy without oversight. -
How customers systematically change behaviour once marginal cost disappears
Lifetime passes, subscriptions, and bundles don’t just shift revenue timing. They rewrite usage economics. -
Why “fair” pricing can collapse demand if it breaks the customer’s mental model
Removing promotions may improve optics internally while destroying perceived value externally. -
How value-based pricing breaks down when innovation is priced additively
Even iconic launches can misjudge willingness to pay when reference points are misread. -
Where small pricing simplifications create the biggest long-term losses
The most expensive mistakes often come from compressing complexity into a single number.
Watch this session to pressure-test how your pricing decisions behave once they leave the spreadsheet and meet real customers at scale.
Meet the Speaker
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Ingo ReinhardtCo-founder and Managing Director at Buynomics |
Before Buynomics, Ingo was a Senior Director with Simon-Kucher & Partners, a global leader in pricing. He holds a Ph.D. in Management from the University of Cologne and Master's degrees in Management and Mathematics. Ingo was a PostDoc at the University of Oxford and published in the Strategic Management Journal.
Session Highlights
Simple pricing rules become dangerous the moment no one is watching
The Amazon book pricing case shows how competitor-based rules can spiral when algorithms react only to each other, with no economic anchor or governance layer. [03:23]
Zero marginal cost fundamentally changes how customers consume
American Airlines’ lifetime first-class pass didn’t fail on price calculation. It failed on behavioural assumptions about usage once cost constraints disappear. [07:36]
Customers hear what leaders say about value, even when it’s meant as a joke
Ratner’s collapse illustrates how publicly reframing product value can instantly destroy trust, even when customers already know prices are low. [16:43]
Additive value logic breaks down when reference points are wrong
The original iPhone launch pricing shows how summing component values ignored how consumers actually anchor willingness to pay for innovation. [22:15]
Correcting a pricing mistake can be harder than making it
Apple’s rapid price reduction triggered backlash from its most loyal customers, forcing public apology and compensation. [23:37]
The real pricing horror is not the extreme case, it’s the daily simplification
Oversimplified elasticity assumptions quietly erode value across portfolios, long before any single decision looks like a failure. [30:33]
Q&A
Why do pricing algorithms fail even when the logic is technically correct?
Because they often optimize against a narrow rule without constraints or human oversight. The failure comes from governance, not computation.
What was the real mistake behind the American Airlines lifetime pass?
The airline priced historical behaviour, not future usage under zero marginal cost. Customers predictably changed how they consumed the product.
Why did JCPenney’s “fair pricing” strategy backfire so quickly?
The change removed the promotional signals customers relied on to feel they were getting value. Demand collapsed even though prices were objectively lower.
How did Apple misjudge the initial iPhone price?
They treated value as the sum of components rather than understanding consumer reference points and adoption thresholds.
What’s the most common pricing mistake seen in practice today?
Relying on overly simplistic models, such as single elasticity numbers, to represent complex portfolio and shopper dynamics.
Why are these historical cases still relevant for modern RGM teams?
Because the same behavioural and structural mistakes recur, especially when organizations forget why previous approaches failed.