Ask HN: What's up with Red Bull's pricing strategy?
Foreword: hopefully this relates to HN as it is business/price-setting related, which could be related to startups.
Well, a 4-pack of 250 ml Red Bull cans costs around five dollars (at Walmart). That is an average price of $1.25/can.
A 24-pack of 250 ml Red Bull cans costs around 42 dollars (http://www.amazon.com/Red-Bull-Energy-Drink-Sugarfree/dp/B000MTM0WK). That means 42/24 = $1.75/can.
At Walmart also, a 12 pack of 250 ml Red Bull cans costs 20 bucks. That is 20/12=1.66 per 250 ml can.
So, 1.25 (4-pack) encourage customers to buy more, not discourage them? What's going on exactly?
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2009 where @mannicken convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.
Hundreds of active indie hackers contributed case studies, pricing heuristics, and pitfalls to avoid when moonlighting on side projects.
Perhaps Red Bull takes into account some discrete pricing jumps that people might have. For example, suppose a single can of Red Bull costs $1.50 (you haven't given that price, but I think it's important) and I go in and see that 4 cans cost $5. So I see that it's a good deal and it's just a five dollar bill.
But when I get to 24 packs I'm in a whole different league and not thinking of an individual note. Now we're talking serious money.
Or perhaps Red Bull buyers can't do arithmetic.
1. You can't compare Walmart to Amazon and expect the same prices.
2. Although larger quantities are usually cheaper by the unit, sometimes that is not true. Maybe the store is running low on inventory for the larger one, or high for the smaller one. Maybe they cut the price on the smaller one to act as a loss leader - I know drinks are often in this category.
If you drink a lot of that junk, you need something like this:
http://journal.dedasys.com/2008/10/17/programmer-fuel
I think I paid 2 euro for that whole bottle. Wow was I wired that day...
The original Thai version of Red Bull can still be found for much cheaper at your local asian grocery store. They will typically carry several off-brand versions as well for even less.
In local stores (in my country) a Redbull costs me around $2.5. Looks like you guys are very lucky :)