The habit of insincerity

[Owledge]

This is in no way meant to cause negative vibes. It's just a neutral examination by a passionate thinker (with added sarcasm ).

 

As you might know (I hope I'm still correct), Chris is in the advertising business, so not really evil, but a little demon.

 

Seriously, the Kunlun book (fully colored) costs $29.95 and this is a psychological trick to make it appear cheaper. This trick is done by virtually everybody, so it has lost a big portion of its intended effect. It has become a habit that people don't think about, but that doesn't change its insincere nature. I've even had people doing that when bargaining with about used car parts in a forum. Especially in this case, the Kunlun book, who really thinks they would sell even one book less if it cost $30?

 

There are some people (well, as far as I know the whole of the Netherlands) who make nice rounded prices, but guess what ... they do it because a business study has shown that it saves money by avoiding employees having to handle all the change.

 

Isn't it sad/weird/funny how there's still so much crappy influence of society even in people on their path of enlightenment? But you can find these things a lot. There are even 'fully enlightened' people who are in some matters totally naive.

 

My general conclusion derived from my experiences: spirituality and intellectuality are two sides of a coin. They work very well together!

 

P.S.: If you feel negative about this post of mine, please re-read the first paragraph. I'm just growing weary of writing disclaimers.

 

P.P.S.: If you don't feel negative yet, try if you can handle this:

quoting the late comedian Bill Hicks on marketeers: "You are satan's spawn, filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself! It's the only way to save your soul. ... Kill yourself!"

I really like his eloquence!

 

P.P.P.S.: If you feel indignant about me writing out the word "fucking", I have an analysis for that, too. But maybe you already know what I would write then.

Edited March 15, 2009 by Hardyg

[Desert Eagle]

There are some people (well, as far as I know the whole of the Netherlands) who make nice rounded prices, but guess what ... they do it because a business study has shown that it saves money by avoiding employees having to handle all the change.

 

that's nice, I never knew that.

 

Isn't it sad/weird/funny how there's still so much crappy influence of society even in people on their path of enlightenment?

 

the story of my life and a source of suffering.

 

But you can find these things a lot. There are even 'fully enlightened' people who are in some matters totally naive.

 

My general conclusion derived from my experiences: spirituality and intellectuality are two sides of a coin. They work very well together!

 

we need both the right and left brain.

 

P.P.S.: If you don't feel negative yet, try if you can handle this:

quoting the late comedian Bill Hicks on marketeers: "You are satan's spawn, filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself! It's the only way to save your soul. ... Kill yourself!"

I really like his eloquence!

 

http://www.thetaobums.com/A-Warning-t7644.html

 

P.P.P.S.: If you feel indignant about me writing out the word "fucking", I have an analysis for that, too. But maybe you already know what I would write then.

 

I'm interested in your analysis.

[gendao]

Seriously, the Kunlun book (fully colored) costs $29.95 and this is a psychological trick to make it appear cheaper. This trick is done by virtually everybody, so it has lost a big portion of its intended effect.

I don't know how much of its effect it's really lost, as I am sure it still works enough to justify its use.

 

I sell on eBay "a lot" and have learned to price everything $X.99, because it really does seem to boost sales.

 

However, I see this as a WIN-WIN situation - because BOTH the buyers and sellers benefit. The seller gets to sell more, while the buyer gets a few cents discount. Really, isn't this a perfect solution?

 

Or would you rather Chris charged you a nickel more?

Edited March 16, 2009 by vortex

[Owledge]

@Desert Eagle

People who write things like "f**k" want to curse AND be politically correct, and that's ... no, not BS, that's bullshit.

Everybody knows what those words with the stars mean. The whole bleeping thing is totally ridiculous ... and thus fits well to our totally ridiculous society.

And if you just want to sound nice, you don't use 'words with stars' at all.

 

@vortex

It complicates everything and the few cents won't benefit you at all, because in the end a trader makes a mixed calculation. It's like with rebate before price fixing: When the customer should get 3% rebate, 3% will be added to the originally intended price and then gratuitously subtracted on the bill.

 

People are so much a slave to this habit that in an ebay auction they will bid 19.95 and I win by bidding 20.01!

 

If someone were to make rounded prices and I knew that it was his own idea with sincerity in mind, THAT would make me buy products.

The more the economy goes down (has actually been for a long time now), the more I abstain from consuming, because the insincerity and egoism behind it causes a lot of annoyance.

Edited March 18, 2009 by Hardyg

[sean]

Seriously, the Kunlun book (fully colored) costs $29.95 and this is a psychological trick to make it appear cheaper.

The way uneven pricing works psychologically, is not to trick the consumer into perceiving the product as cheaper -- it's to communicate to the consumer that the value of the product has been carefully considered using a smaller unit of evaluation (ie: to the nickel in this case) and was not arbitrarily rounded up, just for the sake of having a convenient round number.

 

I agree it's become an unanalyzed habit to just price things like this, and it can come across gimmicky when the .95 or .99 cent change is added to smaller ticket items.

 

But consider if you were shopping for a car. On a gut level which price would seem more carefully measured to you, $25,000 or $24,700? Or a house for $200,000 vs a house for $198,800.

 

It's been shown across the board the latter consistently sells more and faster for the reasons I'm describing. It leaves the customer happy, with a discount they wouldn't have received otherwise and a perception that the chosen pricing was thoughtful and precise, and the business does better for it. Seems win/win to me.

 

If you make a living selling something (and nearly everyone ultimately is at least a small part of a business that is selling something), I fail to see why you would deliberately avoid a practice that makes your product cheaper for the consumer and sell more.

 

/twocents

 

Sean

[Owledge]

Sean, the "accurate price"-strategy (whether sincere or as a trick) is a different one. It applies to very uneven prices, excluding the '9ers'.

 

I would say $24,700 for a car is a sincere price in this regard, and even more uneven prices can be considered as precisely calculated. It's not that bad with car prices, although the 'Plague of the Nine' sometimes infests this sector, too.

 

My approach would be to make more or less rounded prices and educate the consumer about marketing strategy.

Edited March 16, 2009 by Hardyg

[joeblast]

In this instance, the 'business reason' cited doesnt make sense...the 'handlers' of 'currency' are electronic!

 

Fact o' the matter, they make beans selling the color one due to its higher printing cost.

 

If anything, that tiny little less usually winds up being just enough to push the base price of a given item into a lower taxed bracket, even if its in some cases just a few cents. So a little less shelled out by you, a little less given to teh tax man.

[sean]

My approach would be to make more or less rounded prices and educate the consumer about marketing strategy.

"Ooooh boy, Hardyg, I think you're on to something. The market for people who want rounded prices and to be educated on marketing strategy pre-purchase? HUUUUUUGE! Huuuuge market I'm tellin ya". (Inside joke for people who've listened to Bill Hicks)

 

 

Sean

[Cameron]

They have charged $300 even for the weekend seminar since the getgo.

 

I seriously doubt there was much marketing strategy by Chris for the book price. Like Joeblast mentioned they make very little on the book. I think Chris even gave us the amount they make on each book sale once and it wasn't much.

 

The seminar is where you could say they make money but from what I have experienced and seen other's experience it's a very good exchange.

[Owledge]

If anything, that tiny little less usually winds up being just enough to push the base price of a given item into a lower taxed bracket, even if its in some cases just a few cents. So a little less shelled out by you, a little less given to teh tax man.

A graded tax on books/goods depending on their price? I didn't know something like that exists.

(I'm no friend of taxes, you know. )

 

@sean

I could imagine a dialogue like this between Hicks and a marketeer:

"Quit puttin' a goddamn dollar sign on every fuckin' thing on this planet!"

- You know what? You're right! Thanks! Great idea! From now on we'll print all prices without dollar signs! Big market for the anti-monetary dollar!

 

By the way ... they might really do it. But then you'd have to get used to the...

Edited March 16, 2009 by Hardyg

[joeblast]

sales tax, mang...

[thelerner]

I don't mind the .99 or .95's. Matter of fact in some business's like Best Buy there's a code to it showing when a product has been maxed to the lowest, ie most prices ending w/ .99, but the rock bottom at .90.

 

What bothers me is my local chain super market. I dislike there 10 for $10 deals, when no one is going buy 10 of the item, worse are prices like 4 for $3. I'm not mathematically slow, but they're pushing me, they really are.

 

In my perfect world of love and peace, every item would end with .00 when tax is added. Change would never be needed. Mark that well, when I rule the world and you are all under my command. Somethings will change for the better.

 

 

[Owledge]

I wanted to add a small anecdote about the book:

Sometimes I'm a perfectionist, and in the past it annoyed me when I got a book with flaws, so I thought, great, the Kunlun book will be coming fresh from the print right to my home. I got the book in its cardboard shipping envelope, unpacked it. The book itself was - just in case - carefully wrapped in dense foam plastic like it's some piece of art. ... And then I noticed that there are several scratches on the cover!!

 

And you know what I thought?

...

Hilarious!

 

(Edit: Moreover I just noticed that they were no scratches, but traces of glue or something. But they really looked and felt like scratches.)

 

 

AND... the book really is in full color! It's literally full of color! There are some smears of blue on several text pages.

 

And you know what that means?

...

It's very likely that my copy of the book is truly unique!

Edited March 16, 2009 by Hardyg

[h.uriahr]

They have charged $300 even for the weekend seminar since the getgo.

 

I seriously doubt there was much marketing strategy by Chris for the book price. Like Joeblast mentioned they make very little on the book. I think Chris even gave us the amount they make on each book sale once and it wasn't much.

 

The seminar is where you could say they make money but from what I have experienced and seen other's experience it's a very good exchange.

 

The full color book is $39.95 so they would be making on it right? I dont have the book but the dimensions make it seem like a rather small book making it even cheaper to print.

[Cameron]

I have my copy here. It was $29.95.

 

edit-looks like they raised the price of the color version $10.

 

So basically it's $40. It's hard for me to have perspective on a beginner questioning whether it's worth paying or not. I pretty much have made Kunlun my main practice so obviously the $40 book and $300 seminar have been more then worthwhile.

 

I guess it depends on how your looking at it. If your justkind of curious and planning on adding the book to your "spiritual practice or qigong books collection" then yes, maybe you could get something less expensive.

 

But if your looking at it like your learning a powerful and simple Taoist practice that could possibly lead you to awakening. Then that $340 is pretty much a steal.

 

I tend to feel more towards the latter about Kunlun so kind of silly to talk about rounding nickels

Edited March 17, 2009 by Cameron

[Owledge]

Yeah, I didn't have the slightest problem with the costs either.

 

I just noticed that I paid the new price, so the back of the book still carries the old price. Didn't get that before because I paid it in EUR.

 

There are by the way a lot of things with the book that could be 'corrected', but it might be just the old problem of a lack of time. The whole thing seems a bit (pardon me) half-assed, and that's what seems to have put off some people, but you just have to accept that that's the nature of the thing. It could be different, yes, but the core, the important part, is delivered. It's quite likely that if Chris had a whole lot of time for all this and nothing else to do, it would look a lot different.

 

BTW Cameron... Kunlun drove you nuts and now you try to do the same to others with your avatar picture?

Edited March 17, 2009 by Hardyg

[h.uriahr]

I have my copy here. It was $29.95.

 

edit-looks like they raised the price of the color version $10.

 

So basically it's $40. It's hard for me to have perspective on a beginner questioning whether it's worth paying or not. I pretty much have made Kunlun my main practice so obviously the $40 book and $300 seminar have been more then worthwhile.

 

I guess it depends on how your looking at it. If your justkind of curious and planning on adding the book to your "spiritual practice or qigong books collection" then yes, maybe you could get something less expensive.

 

But if your looking at it like your learning a powerful and simple Taoist practice that could possibly lead you to awakening. Then that $340 is pretty much a steal.

 

I tend to feel more towards the latter about Kunlun so kind of silly to talk about rounding nickels

 

You said that they didnt make hardly any money off of a $30 book, I was just asking how that's possible because the book is $40, but even paying $30 for the book they'd still be making interest on it.

[thelerner]

I bought the black and white, if I want color I'll look out the window

 

Its very hard for small publishers right now, any publisher, any business really.

 

 

Michael

[Owledge]

You said that they didnt make hardly any money off of a $30 book, I was just asking how that's possible because the book is $40, but even paying $30 for the book they'd still be making interest on it.

I guess it's because Lulu does "print-on-demand"; These things are of course more expensive than batch production. I think it's a great idea for minimizing financial risks for people on a tight budget... like Max.

 

But in Japan his book (in a different look) seems to be available on Amazon, so there should be other means becoming available with time, I hope.

 

----------------

 

A propos book... What do the chinese characters on/in the book mean? I figured out that the ones on the cover are wood, fire, earth, metal, water. The one on the first page and the one (or combination of two?) on the back I couldn't find.

Edited March 17, 2009 by Hardyg