Price Personae - Price/Value/Quality

The Big Idea

There are fundamentally three kinds of consumer personae as it relates to price: price-sensitive, value-sensitive, and premium-sensitive.

Understanding these personae for your product category may help you understand how your consumer’s values interact with their price sensitivity.

The Heuristic

Price Sensitive

Price-sensitive consumers are extremely sensitive to where their dollars are going, and will prioritize price over quality (or brand) within the category. These are the consumers who will buy the off-brand cereal, the off-brand soda, etc, if it means saving money.

Quality Sensitive

Quality-sensitive consumers are more sensitive to quality than to price. These consumers are the shoppers who will buy wild caught salmon at an upscale grocery store

Value Sensitive

Value-sensitive consumers are fundamentally focused on value relative to cost. While the price sensitive shopper might respond to coupons if it brings the desired item to a cost-competitive price, value shoppers will respond to a “good deal” on items or brands they may not consider at the full retail price.

Where You Can Use It

The consumer persona might tie closely into the pricing strategy that you employ. If you are selling high-end luxury cars, you are intrinsically appealing to the quality-sensitive consumer—I’ve never heard anybody bragging about getting a great deal on a new Bugatti—and you’ll price around a premium pricing strategy. Conversely,if you are selling a commodity, you may be working with a price-sensitive consumer and have to use a cost-plus pricing model. If you are selling brand-name groceries, you may be focusing on a value-sensitive consumer and need to employ marketing-oriented tactics.