BPTO

Brand-Price Trade-Off

Brand-Price Trade-Off (BPTO) is a specialised tool that answers pricing questions for consumer goods in a competitive context. It is particularly useful when you want to:

  • Forecast revenue, profitability, and market volume performance after launching a new product or re-pricing an existing product.
  • Identify the source of volume your new pricing or NPD is most likely to capture from, helping you avoid cannibalising your own products.
  • Evaluate the impact of awareness and advertising on the adoption of new concepts.

Based on the ideas and algorithms of conjoint analysis and Van Westendorp, BPTO is a choice-based technique that reflects consumers' differing preferences for SKUs/brands as well as budget and psychological pricing constraints.

Main outputs

NPD volume share simulation

NPD volume share simulation

Through simulation, you can estimate the volume shares following the introduction of your NPDs, and compare performance before and after adcepts are shown to respondents. This helps to assess the impact of awareness/advertising has on your NPD adoption.

The example study shows that NPD Lemon has the highest adoption rate, even before the adcept is displayed.

Movements in volume share

Movements in volume share

Movements in volume share show the increase and decrease in each of the current SKUs after introducing your NPDs. This helps to determine whether each NPD's increased volume share is derived from your existing SKUs or from competitors.

The example study shows that each NPD’s market share sources different proportions from our competitors.

Price elasticity of demand

Price elasticity of demand

Calculate the specific coefficient of price elasticity of demand for your NPDs by selecting two points on the simulation chart (the approximate price elasticity of demand is automatically calculated and displayed in Conjointly). This helps you understand how market volume will perform at the different price points your NPDs were tested at.

The example study shows that for Fresh Raspberry, demand is elastic (i.e. an increase in price by 1% leads to more than 1% drop in volume). Revenue does not vary greatly, regardless of price point.

Revenue/Profits Index

Revenue/Profits Index

Through simulation, you can learn how our NPDs' revenue and profitability will perform at different price points. Revenue projections are displayed in the simulation chart by default (this can be switched to profitability) and are calculated by assuming 1000 units offered. Profitability is calculated using assumed fixed and variable costs through the formulas: Revenue = price * share * 1000; Profit = (price-$1) * share * 1000. You can replace the assumed 1000 units with the total market volume of your product category to get more accurate prediction of your product revenue or profitability.

NPD volume share simulation

Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter

Van Westendorp results show the psychologically acceptable range of prices for your NPDs. It can be used as a diagnostic to validate the recommended price from the main conjoint exercise.

Other outputs

Other outputs

Experiment outputs and raw data are available as an Excel workbook — confidence intervals are provided wherever possible, and all reports can be segmented by respondent information, respondents' answers to additional questions, sentiment analysis, GET variables, and your uploaded variables.

These results will help us to answer the following (and similar) questions:

  • Are the results significantly different with confidence intervals?
  • What are the performances of different segments?


When to use Brand-Price Trade-Off

Brand-Price Trade-Off is the ideal tool for both pricing NPDs and re-pricing existing products when you are:

  • Pricing consumer goods, including durable goods, cosmetics, over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, and alcohol.
  • Focussing solely on SKUs and price points, without considering other product features.
  • Comparing price points on a same scale (e.g. not comparing price per litre vs. price per kg).
  • Assessing markets with existing competition (minimum of 3 competitor SKUs).

The tool takes into account:

  • Price barriers.
  • Differences in price sensitivity by SKU/brand.
  • Effect of exposure to advertising.
  • Behavioural differences between consumer groups, such as current users vs. product considerers.
  • Individual respondents' price sensitivities.

This tool, however, is less ideal when you are investigating:

  • Unique products or products in an entirely new category without existing competition. Gabor-Granger should be used instead.
  • Psychological pricing (i.e. whether the price ends in .99 or .95). Monadic (“A/B”) price testing or Brand-Specific Conjoint should be used instead.
  • Products with positive price elasticities (i.e. when consumers are willing to buy the product at a higher price point more than at a lower price point). Brand-Specific Conjoint suits such situations better.

Survey flow

The survey flow consists of four separate exercises, with the purpose of introducing both our existing SKUs and competitor SKUs before introducing respondents to our NPDs:

1. Conjoint exercise presents various brands along with current offering.

Brand-Price Trade-Off's conjoint exercise presents various brands along with current offering

2. Conjoint exercise presents various brands along with NPD before adcepts.

The new proposition is added to existing SKUs.

Brand-Price Trade-Off's conjoint exercise presents various brands along with NPD before adcepts

3. Introduce NPDs through adcepts.

Adcepts explain the NPD as a picture board or video.

Brand-Price Trade-Off introduces NPDs through adcepts

4. Conjoint exercise presents various brands along with NPD after adcepts.

This can be followed by diagnostic questions, such as Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter, as well as additional questions.

Brand-Price Trade-Off's conjoint exercise presents various brands along with NPD after adcepts

Discover how to set up a Brand-Price Trade-Off study in just a few easy steps.

Complete solution for pricing research