There has been market research done that has proven that you can take two identical products - maybe with slightly different branding and sell them for very different prices
Put one up for sale at £2500 and the other for £5000
You would be amazed that many people will lust after the more expensive one simply because of it's perceived higher value.
This relates back to the same desires people have for Rolex watches and expensive cars .
Often it has little to do with the quality of construction and technological stuff and more to do with saying "Hey Baby - I'm loaded with money."
And when it's not about attracting the opposite sex it's about one-up-manship over peers and friends/rivals..
To be fair sometimes it is about the construction - maybe a Mercedes or a BMW is a great car to own and drive.
So maybe a small maker will discover that if he sells at £2500 rather than £5000 he doesn't have twice as many people buying the item or anywhere near that amount than if he sold for the higher price.
Maybe he has nearly as many customers at the higher price and making more margin on what he sells allows him to dedicate more time to each project and finesse the guitar to near perfection.
Maybe it means that he doesn't feel like giving up because he would earn more money per hour stacking shelves at Tescos
This is an extremely good point that applies to so many things (that we buy, obviously).
There is a greater assurance that comes with something expensive. You think, not actively, but the impression you have, is that the higher price is reflected in the quality and people seem to be remarkably good at fooling themselves that their LP or car or watch or toaster or whatever is better because its more expensive.
I know some people that are even well aware of this phenomenon that still allow themselves to fall victim to it. I've been told "I know its probably not better, but I
feel better about something if it costs more".
Theres a similar logic to 'name' gear.
The effects add with
expensive name gear. It triples with signature model expensive name gear.
The way I see it, you have to keep your assesments of anything objective. Evaluate the bit of kit right infront of you. Maybe you end up seeing that such-and-such £2000 big name sig guitar is actually really mediocre and the £200 obscure brand is pretty damn good.
I think that most of the time when people buy a thing they are as much buying a feeling of owning a name, or buying into an image as they are the actual object. If that name or image has selling power, then the price can be high and the product completely undeserving of it and people will buy it.
