Inspiration

Price Frame your Estate Agency Fees

RAT 79 (Rawlings Agency Tip)

A RAT subscriber recently mentioned the success they have had with multi-option pricing – a subject I wrote about in my RAT of 2nd December 2010. See http://sut2.co.uk/l/c.php?c=8063&ct=106497 On investigating this further, I find this technique is called “Price Framing” and I fell into the trap myself a few weeks ago. My 8 year old daughter is undertaking a course of sound therapy, for which she needed some good quality headphones. So my wife and I went into Comet and told the salesperson what we were looking for and why. The lady was very knowledgeable and directed us to a stand featuring a set of “Beats by Dr Dre” for £279. These were the highest quality noise-cancelling headphones available in the shop and they were of course superb! In view of the need for quality, we were very tempted, but had not expected to have to pay nearly £300 for some headphones.

So we asked if there was anything cheaper and were directed to another stand with a variety of headphones ranging from £80(Bose) down to £9.99. Relief! The £80 headphones did not have noise cancellation (which we didn’t actually need anyway) but at £200 less than the Beats by Dr Dre they certainly did the job at the right price. So we bought them immediately.

Ah. Wait a minute. Had we not seen the £279 option, then the most expensive headphones in the shop would have been the £80 Bose ones. I’d guess that with a range from £80 (expensive) down to £9.99 (cheap) we would probably have bought some around the £50 mark! We had been price framed!

It’s the same with wine in a restaurant. You don’t want to go for the most expensive option, but nor do you want to buy the cheapest, so you tend to go for something in the middle.

So just a reminder – it’s worth offering people price options with you estate agency fees. Eg 3.5% if the client wants the MD to be personally involved, 2.5% for the standard service, or 1.5% for limited advertising, non-accompanied viewings etc.

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© Richard Rawlings 2012
Richard Rawlings is the founding director of Estate Agency Insight, which specialises in helping estate agencies harness opportunity through innovative method, marketing, publicity, and training. He can be contacted at or on 0845 838 1354.

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