Log homes and log cabins can be surprisingly difficult products to understand. You get all kinds of sets and degrees of deliveries. Moreover, log homes and log cabins are image products, just open any log home magazine and it is all about emotion to have one not about money it takes to buy one or skill it takes to build one. These are the reasons why it is so easy to be lured by advertising while shopping log building.

Seth Godin had a piece about nutty pricing. I don’t know how was the case with Seth’s example, but nutty pricing can sometimes be clever pricing. Many log home companies name various delivery choices with normal buyers campaign mentality in mind. They might have four different delivery packages for certain model e.g. like this: basic, normal, deluxe and service.

The idea is to rely on our logic thinking. We automatically go and presume that service package is the best, however they set the package pricing lower than deluxe so we believe the company when it says that service package now has special pricing because of the season (it is always the season for log homes). If we go into the details and compare the delivery contents, we notice that deluxe was indeed much better, but to notice that, you have to go and have long discussions with the sales agent.

Mind about the product and the price it is not always what the label says.

Auctioning second quality log home kits and only tonight, the newspaper ad declared. Auction will be held at company’s premises so purchaser can check the merchandise. It was simple black and white text ad, tiny and cheap looking. Certainly it got masses moving. Mill yard was packed with people, and everybody was excited, but me or that’s how it looked like to me.

You see I wasn’t excited because starting price was set almost to the level of normal selling price. Because of all the commotion and tight scheduling, many people came unprepared and unknowing what they actually were trying to buy. As we all know, log homes and log cabins are rather unified products, so most log home companies try to differentiate themselves by introducing several packages, some including windows, doors, flooring, roofing, walls etc, some including just walls. It really is difficult to make an educated decision.

All kits were sold over retail price, but because it was an auction there were some amazing tie-ins with auctioned kits, including super value like flooring material. Clever business, which reminded me of supermarket in-store ads “Buy 2, just 2 euro” and when you check the price of one, it is actually 99 cents. Know what you are buying, and remember, all manufacturers have their special corner notch that is basically the same as with other manufacturers.

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