When you’re running a WooCommerce business, your pricing model can play a pivotal role in your sales. If you’re a wholesaler, you might lean toward volume pricing. However, there are many reasons to consider using a tiered pricing strategy instead.
Tiered pricing can help you establish a more sophisticated and ultimately successful business model for both you and your customers. It can help you cater to each of your customer bases based on a handful of factors and gain an edge over your competitors.
In this post, we’ll introduce you to tiered pricing. Then, we’ll explain how it differs from volume pricing and go over its benefits. Lastly, we’ll explore some tiered pricing strategy examples and discuss four best practices.
Let’s jump in!
An Introduction To Tiered Pricing
Tiered pricing is a type of fee structure in which businesses can offer different levels of service or products to their customers for varying pricing, depending on the level of usage.
For example, some software companies may offer basic features at a low-cost tier and then more advanced features at higher tiers with additional costs. If you have a wholesale business, you could offer discounts for bulk orders or base pricing on the frequency of orders.
Tiered pricing is often used in competitive markets with multiple players where companies want to differentiate themselves from each other by offering better or more advanced services at higher prices. The other popular pricing model is volume pricing.
Generally, tiered pricing tends to focus more on offering different service levels or features for customers at different price points. On the other hand, volume pricing typically consists of adjusting prices based on factors such as order size or frequency.
Why Use A Tiered Pricing Strategy
There are many benefits to using a tiered pricing strategy. First, it can be an effective way to target different types of customers based on their needs and budget constraints. It can be an excellent strategy for growing your customer base.
Additionally, tiered pricing can also drive up revenues. You can use it to encourage customers to move up to the higher-priced tiers as their needs evolve.
Tiered pricing can also help you better manage your costs by allowing you to offer more expensive features or services to those who are willing to pay for them. Meanwhile, you can keep costs down for those who are not.
WooCommerce Tiered Pricing Strategy Best Practices
If you’re considering using tiered pricing for your business, there are a few things to keep in mind. Below are four best practices to consider.
1. Clearly define each of your tiers
It’s important to clearly define the different tiers and what each one offers in terms of service or features. We recommend creating a separate tier for each of your customer personas. With this approach, you can tailor each of the tiers based on the biggest pain points of each type of customer.
Also, be sure to clearly communicate the different features and benefits of each tier to your customers.
This is important to ensure that they can make informed decisions about which one is right for them. Clearly defining each tier can help your customers better understand the value of upgrading to a higher one.
2. Set pricing that accurately reflects the value
When setting tiered prices, it’s essential to consider the value of each tier. You’ll want to make sure that your prices accurately reflect that value.
For example, if you double the price from Tier A to Tier B, there should be a noticeable upgrade in products and services that justifies the cost increase.
3. Monitor customer usage patterns
You’ll need to monitor customer usage patterns closely to ensure that your pricing tiers are effective and sustainable over time.
Do you observe that one tier is significantly more popular than others? Then you might consider what obstacles are preventing customers from subscribing to these other tiers. For instance, perhaps the pricing is too high for the amount of value included with the tier.
On the other hand, closely tracking customer usage patterns can give you insight into what’s actually working. You can assess your most successful tiers to get a better understanding of what your customers value most and what you can mimic in other areas of your business.
4. Use Wholesale Suite to seamlessly manage your tiered pricing
Our plugin offers a complete solution for wholesale businesses. You can use Wholesale Suite to extend the functionality of your WooCommerce features, including adding a tiered pricing model:
Our plugin helps you easily configure and manage your wholesale pricing across multiple levels. You can use fixed-rate or percentage-based pricing, as well as tiered pricing structures. We offer general tiered pricing features, quantity-based pricing, and general subtotal extra discounts.
With WooCommerce Wholesale Prices Premium, you can define multiple tiers of wholesale user roles:
Then you can manage your tiered pricing depending on your customers’ commitment levels. You can also apply a quantity-based tiered percentage discount pricing structure to products based on the sum total of all products in a given category that are in the cart.
Tiered Pricing Examples
There are many different ways that businesses can structure their tiered pricing for wholesale customers. One example is offering discounts for bulk orders. Let’s say you wanted to create a quantity-based tier percentage discount.
You can apply it to your General, Product, User, and/or Category settings. You can select the wholesale role, then add the wholesale discount and starting and ending quantities:
Another tiered pricing example is setting different prices based on order frequency. You could offer a discounted price to customers who place bulk orders on a regular basis. This can act as an incentive for customers to commit to your business and establish a consistent and ongoing order schedule.
You could also provide additional services or features at higher tiers. For instance, perhaps you offer free or discounted shipping on higher tier levels.
Conclusion
Tiered pricing can be an effective way to boost your revenues and better target your customers. When done right, it can help you grow your business while keeping costs down. However, it’s important to carefully consider all of the factors involved before implementing a tiered pricing strategy.
As we discussed in this post, there are four best practices you can follow when creating your tiered pricing strategy:
- Clearly define and communicate the terms of each tier
- Set pricing to accurately reflect the value of each tier
- Monitor customer usage patterns
- Use Wholesale Suite to seamlessly manage tiered pricing
Do you have any questions about creating a tiered pricing strategy? Let us know in the comments section below!
