--- title: "Occupying a Price Band Means Occupying an Era" description: "Author: Liu Chunxiong | Source: Teacher Liu's Forum (ID: liuchunxiong1964). On the first day at Harvard Business School, new students scramble for seats, as the seat you get on day one is yours for years, affecting your interaction with professors and academic performance. Similarly, in business, occupying a price band is like securing a seat—it determines your market position and success." author: "刘春雄" publisher: "New Distribution" email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com" telephone: "+8615854817671" published: "2017-06-06" language: "en" canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/occupying-a-price-band-means-occupying-an-era-5c348f1a/" markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/occupying-a-price-band-means-occupying-an-era-5c348f1a.md" original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_C_L_FM9a4V3o5f3mPee7Q" translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E5%8D%A0%E9%A2%86%E4%BA%86%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%AA%E4%BB%B7%E6%A0%BC%E5%B8%A6-%E5%B0%B1%E5%8D%A0%E6%8D%AE%E4%BA%86%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%AA%E6%97%B6%E4%BB%A3-5c348f1a.md" attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/occupying-a-price-band-means-occupying-an-era-5c348f1a/" usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt" --- # Occupying a Price Band Means Occupying an Era > Author: Liu Chunxiong | Source: Teacher Liu's Forum (ID: liuchunxiong1964). On the first day at Harvard Business School, new students scramble for seats, as the seat you get on day one is yours for years, affecting your interaction with professors and academic performance. Similarly, in business, occupying a price band is like securing a seat—it determines your market position and success. Author: Liu Chunxiong Source: Teacher Liu's Forum (ID: liuchunxiong1964) On the first day at Harvard Business School, new students scramble for seats. Many students arrive at dawn to grab a seat, yet not all get good ones. The seat you secure on the first day is yours for the next few years. The seat determines the interaction between students and teachers, and also affects academic performance. 1. **Price Band Is Also a Seat** In the past, Chinese companies had no awareness of price bands. Everyone was scrambling for "wealth at the bottom of the pyramid," with products overall at the lowest end of the value chain. Although prices varied, they were generally crowded into the same price band. In the past, consumption was polarized: one pole was the lowest-end consumption, the other was luxury consumption, forming a "middle collapse," making it difficult to form price bands. **Now products are upgrading, which is essentially an extension of price bands. Each period has a mainstream price band. Products in this band are the mainstream products.** For example, in the bottled water industry, 1 yuan per bottle was once the mainstream price band for a long time. Now, the mainstream price band has risen to 2 yuan per bottle. Correspondingly, companies in the 1 yuan price band have declined. What is the mainstream price band after 2 yuan? Evergrande launched a 5 yuan product and distributed it widely, which seems a bit hasty. Not long ago, I met a bottled water boss who was in the 3 yuan price band. He said, "Our price is a bit expensive." I said, "It's not expensive. The future mainstream price band might be 3 yuan. You're just seizing this price band ahead of time." 2. **Big Single Products Are in the Mainstream Price Band** The mainstream price band is the one with the largest sales volume. Both traditional big single products and internet hit products emerge in the mainstream price band. **The rise of the middle class has pushed price bands upward. Convenience stores are a standard feature for the middle class, so they have become a trend.** Some say, "What's the difference between convenience stores and traditional supermarkets?" I say, besides the shopping experience and environment, one difference is that mainstream products are in different price bands. As price bands move up, original big single products become outdated, and new big single products emerge. For example, in the dairy industry, the original yogurt products were not only outdated but also in too low a price band. The new price band is where products like Mosilian, Ambrosial, and Chunzhen series are. Therefore, the three dairy giants are fiercely competing in this price band. 3. **The Leader Must Occupy the Mainstream Price Band** Occupying a price band is equivalent to occupying an era. **A price band is stable for a considerable period, and the mainstream price band has the largest sales volume.** So the mainstream price band is the "greatest common divisor" of social demand, and it is the price band where super big single products are born. I know a bottled water company. When the mainstream price band was 1-1.5 yuan, they were making 2 yuan products with very small sales. When the mainstream rose to 2 yuan, this company shifted to making 3 yuan products. This is a problematic company because it is always in non-mainstream price bands. **Marginal companies should first seize future price bands and then wait for the new price band to arrive. This is a good method for early positioning.** However, when the new mainstream price band truly arrives, they should dare to increase volume in time and hold on to this long-cultivated price band, not easily give it up. Marginal companies are marginal because they dare not seize the mainstream. In terms of price, they either go lower than the mainstream price, becoming low-end, or higher, becoming marginal. 4. **Price Band Is a Scarce Resource** The higher the price band, the scarcer the resources. At the bottom of the pyramid, the price band can accommodate more products, but as you go up, it becomes more like a single-plank bridge. If you seize the single-plank bridge, other companies will find it hard to cross. Just as positioning is about seizing consumers' minds, seizing a price band is also about seizing consumers' minds. People always choose products within their own price band. **In this price band, whoever consumers think of first has the advantage.** Because price band resources are scarce, when the mainstream price band is seized by competitors, sometimes you have to fight hard to squeeze into it. 5. **Price Band Is a Mind Resource** Kotler said that marketing is not about selling products, but about selling prices. In Kotler's "Marketing Management," when discussing price, he first talks about "price points." I think **price is not a point, but a price range**, so "price band" is more vivid than "price point." Kotler even said that each price band corresponds to a brand, such as car brands (the following is from "Marketing Management"): Top: Rolls-Royce Gold Standard: Mercedes-Benz Luxury: Audi Specific Needs: Volvo Mid-range: Buick Convenience: Ford Escort Similar Products: Hyundai Price-Oriented: Kia **Expanding based on price bands forms product tiers. Once you occupy a tier, it becomes a mind resource.** -END- --- ## Copyright and AI use This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL. Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671