Thursday, May 7, 2009

Pricing puzzle : Why movies are priced all the same ?

Young Indiana Jones fan puzzled by the pricing of the movie

As everybody knows, prices are, basically, the result of the law of offer and demand. But it's not always the case, as we've previously commented in the ice cream category (here) where all flavors are sold the same price whatever the cost of the raw material.

What I always found strange is that Movie theaters charge different prices depending on clients ages and time of the day or days in the week (morning and mondays are sometimes cheaper). Restaurants do the same with happy hours promotion. But when restaurants charge you different prices depending on the meal you order, Movies theater charge you the same price whatever the movie you choose to see.

That seems to be a universal rule (anyone do have a counter example ?). Same price, whatever the movie is an absolute blockbuster with millions of revenues or a total failure ; if designed for the whole family or more focused on special kind of public ; whatever the production cost they're all priced the same !

What's strange is that this do not apply to concerts or theater where, depending of the band / play differences may be huge between prices tickets. That rule also do not apply with DVDs where you also find price differences between movies (new release vs. classical of all time).

In a future post we'll try to find some explanation...

1 comment:

Henri Kaufman said...

Et si l'on payait, à l'entrée ou à la sortie, ce qu'on veut ?

Cf. ma note http://minurl.fr/fer qui analyse ce sujet très à la mode aujourd'hui...
Henri