Why you’re losing out on revenue if you don’t use Good, Better, Best pricing
You’ve probably walked out of a shop having spent nothing, when you’d walked in ready to spend quite a lot. Not because you changed your mind. Not because you didn’t have the money. But because no one made it easy enough to say yes. That’s not a loyalty problem or a footfall problem — it’s a pricing conversation problem. And it has a straightforward fix.
What is Good, Better, Best (GBB) pricing?
GBB is a way of structuring your pricing so you have an offer for everyone. UK supermarkets are experts in this, appealing as they do to a wide range of shoppers.
If you shop for a pie in Sainsburys there’s an entry level offer, either under the Value or Stamford Street brand. Then there will be a Sainsburys offer at maybe twice the price. Then if you want to indulge yourself you have the Taste The Difference option at twice the price of the mainstream offer…or four times the base price.
Sainsburys doesn’t pretend these are the same quality. Quite the opposite. It’s clear from the product description, packaging and ingredients that you get what you pay for. It’s up to each buyer to make their choice. The critical thing is that the choice exists so there really is something for everyone.
Software pricing (SaaS) works on the same principle. It’s common practice to see three price columns on the payment plan page. The left column shows the entry level (Good), with two further columns showing an increasingly long list of product features (Better and Best). No matter you don’t want all the technical specialities on offer, it’s a framework that helps you reach a purchase decision.
Why is Good, Better, Best pricing so powerful?
The obvious conclusion from the examples above is that GBB creates a price point for everyone. Appealing to all sorts of buyer drives revenue.
But more impactful than this is the psychological power of helping the buyer through their decision-making process.
Price anchoring is the impact you have on someone through the first price that gets named. Research has shown that the amount diners spend on a bottle of wine is influenced by the price of the first bottle on the list.
Start low (and most wine lists do) then the diner’s anchor is set at say, £20, making the £50 bottle look extravagant.
Flip the price list the other way around and you anchor at £50 or more. From this start point the customer is much more likely to spend above the £20 price point. £30 is a bargain when you thought you might end up paying £50.
You can enhance this anchoring by taking the time to explain to the customer what factors might help them choose between the three GBB tiers. That’s why you’ll often see website pricing pages that explain that certain price tiers are “best for x” customer type.
How does Good, Better, Best pricing work in the real world?
Last week I visited the optician for an eye test. Leaving the store having spent precisely nothing got me thinking about what could be done to close that lost sales opportunity.
Opticians have a slightly odd business model. They invest in attractive high street sites, yet most of their footfall comes from people taking a cheap (or in my case, free) eye test. Transaction value is low.
Real revenue comes from the potential uptrade in persuading those same customers to leave with a new pair of glasses. Sell just one pair and the revenue from that visit multiplies.
Of course, this creates that classic sales conundrum. The staff in store are nudged/ encouraged/ instructed to sell glasses to every customer.
The customer in turn has to go through that awkwardness of feeling pressured to buy while being watched over by an anxious staff member. It’s an unsatisfactory customer experience.
The elephant in the room is going through all of that feeling that you might get a better deal somewhere else. Especially now you can buy online.
What happened on my recent visit? Unusually I was given a new prescription. This of course creates a hot sales opportunity for the team in store. I was encouraged to try on a few pairs of glasses and shortlist my preferences.
The sales assistant then priced them up, which with the Buy One Get Second Half Price offer came to £245 for two pairs.
If you’ve been sold to less than well then you know that moment when your brain comes up with the first unswervable excuse that comes into your head.
I explained that I’d like my wife to see what I was buying – which as she wasn’t with me was a get-out the store couldn’t argue with.
Sale value from my visit: Zero
How can Good, Better, Best pricing help boost sales?
1. The power of asking questions
The first thing to draw from this experience is our #1 sales lesson: The power of asking questions.
Maybe it’s my age. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t paying for the eye test. Perhaps it was the way I was dressed. But the store assistant took me to their entry level rack of glasses to make my choice.
Good sales questions aren’t rocket science. They are conversations.
How many pairs of glasses do you have now?
Do you like a different look when you’re acting professional at work or dressing up to go out?
Just those two questions would have got me to realise I need four new pairs of glasses. Two for work and two for knocking around the house. That leads onto…
2. Building trust
Explaining Good, Better, Best pricing is a fantastic way of building trust with your customer.
Because here’s the real kicker. Truthfully the optician is only really stocking Better (own brand) and Best (designer) glasses. Doesn’t everyone know these days you can get two cheap pairs for £50 from Glasses Direct (other suppliers are available). That’s really the entry level (Good) option.
A much better way of opening the conversation would be for the shop assistant to set out the three GBB options for me:
“At the high end you’ve got designer brands. That would usually cost you £500 to £600 for two pairs, but we’ve got an offer at the moment so you’ll save 50% on the second pair. [Note how starting with the designer brand sets the price anchor high]
“Two pairs of our own brand glasses are going to be about half that.
“To be honest if you wanted something really cheap you can get an entry level pair on the internet. Don’t expect any frills or designer touches, but if you just want a functional spare pair they might do the job.
If the assistant had guided me through that conversation I would have bought two designer pairs from her there and then. Why? Because I know the in-store experience of trying on, sizing and matching the prescription is the best way of buying a premium product. But more than anything, because helping the customer understand the market builds trust.
Then I would have gone home and ordered two cheap pairs online that would be perfectly adequate for leaving in the glove compartment or on the sofa.
In summary: Why Good, Better, Best pricing is a winning sales strategy
The simple reason GBB works is that you’re offering something for everyone.
More powerful still is that helping the customer understand the range of options available to them builds trust and confidence.
That unlocks nuance in customer behaviour. Instead of guessing whether the customer in front of you is best suited to Good, Better or Best you might find a customer who wants different solutions for different use cases. Designer glasses for work and cheap ones for the car.
In more complex business to business selling there’s a powerful multiplier effect on top of this: By describing the range of buyer choices under GBB you’ve positioned the services and price points you might be able to sell as follow-on services, boosting client lifetime value. You don’t need many examples of zero versus £500 to transform your sales line.
Next time a customer walks through your door — or lands on your pricing page — ask yourself whether you’ve made it easy for them to say yes at any level. Not just one level. GBB isn’t a sales trick; it’s a conversation framework that respects your customer’s intelligence and meets them where they are. Set the anchor high, lay out the options honestly, and let them choose. You’ll be surprised how rarely they choose nothing.
If you’d like to think through how Good, Better, Best pricing could work in your business, we’re always happy to talk.