How Profitable Could Your Aftermarket Business Become?

May 13, 2019 in Blog

Why implement new pricing strategies? And why even think about investing in a new pricing software? What is the purpose? Let’s be honest, it is quite simple. The purpose is to generate more profit. Period.

Sure, there are other important reasons too. For example, we all know how overpricing can hurt the long-term brand value and customer loyalty. That matters also. But without that pure financial gain, which is found through avoiding setting prices too low, it would be difficult to justify spending resources on implementing new pricing strategies.

aftermarket profit analysis

The key question, then, is: How large a financial gain could you harvest from your aftermarket? How do you find and implement it? And how can you make that new profit level sustainable over time?

In this article, I will share my thoughts on how to answer these questions. My intention is to share what I have seen and learned during the last ten years as a pricer, a reflection of my own experience of implementing smart aftermarket pricing for multiple B2B and B2B2C companies over the years.

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My Top 4 Mistakes in Aftermarket Pricing. Save Yourself Some Pain & Don’t Make Them Yourself.

November 26, 2018 in Blog

Today I would like to share some of the mistakes I have made during my years in aftermarket pricing. I hope that by reading this material, you will be able to avoid as many of them as possible. I guess I’m trying to write the text which would have helped me when I did my first aftermarket pricing project about ten years ago.

To keep it simple, I decided to make a list of criteria which I think are important if a pricing strategy is to last for a long time. I will zoom into attribute-based pricing strategies. The reason is that those usually give the best return but are also the most difficult to manage.

Before we get into this, just a short reminder that when I write “attribute-based pricing strategies”, I refer to price logic, where physical attributes, such as weight, length, power, brand, etc. are used to set the price. In a nutshell, you create groups of similar parts, and in each group you define which attributes should be used. Then you create the price equation based on those attributes. So here it is, the list of what you should try to avoid if you want your pricing strategy to pass the test of time. My hope is that you will be able to avoid most of these mistakes. Enjoy 😊

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Four pricing strategies for the aftermarket

October 18, 2018 in Blog

In my career, I have been implementing pricing strategies for numerous manufacturing companies. Even though they all are unique, they usually have the following similarities in their portfolios:

They have thousands of parts

There is a mix of manufactured and purchased parts

Some of the manufactured parts are easy to copy, others are not

The cost of the manufactured parts is driven by factors not relevant to the customer; is the product in mass production? Have we switched suppliers? Are there setup costs needed to start production again? Etc.

Few parts represent the majority of sales

It’s dangerous to overprice low selling products, as one high price is enough to damage customer relations

So, how best to price such a portfolio? There are thousands of products, you cannot look at each of them individually. The cost is a terrible base for manufactured parts, pricing one too high is enough to upset and lose a customer forever.

What we have ended up implementing is a combination of strategies, all suitable for different parts of the portfolio. Let me share on a high level what these strategies are. Continue reading »

Why aftermarket business is different

July 12, 2018 in Blog

I have seen it so many times. How companies cure the aftermarket business with the same medicine used for their other businesses.

And guess what… they usually end up giving away margin, losing sales volume, and sometimes even destroying their brand reputation.

Have you seen it too?

So how can you optimize your aftermarket without ending up in any of these pit-falls? Well, the first thing you need to do is understand how your aftermarket is different from other parts of the business.

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Why aftermarket pricing is best done centrally

June 25, 2018 in Blog

Have you also been to that meeting?

The meeting where the local team talks about why they need to own the aftermarket pricing? That they know the market better. How they adapt to the very special situation of their market. How your central pricing is all theory and not reality.

Well… I have been there. Many times. And according to me, the local teams are wrong believing that they are best served setting spare part prices themselves.

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