Küçük ölçekli işletmelerde fiyatlandırma kararları: Doğu Karadeniz bölgesinde bir uygulama
Özet
Price and Quality of product are the key elements for small-scale firms. Pricing is a problem when a firm has to set a price for the first time. This happens when the firm develops or acquires a new product, when it introduces its regular product into a new distribution channel or geographical area and when it enters, bids on a new contract work. Pricing strategies basically will vary according to the product and service characteristics and the timing of the product life cycle, but the firms adapt the price to varying conditions in the market-place. We could move from there to say that we should price at what the market wil bear. The firm facing a price change initiated by a competitor must try to understand the competitor's intent and the likely duration of the change. If swiftness of reaction is desirable, the firm should preplain its reactions to different possible price actions by competitors. Understanding, monitoring, controling, and allocating costs in a smaller business can be the single largest determinant in making a profit. Understanding the cost structure initially involves clasifying cost components. What the smaller business can do is establish a system to identify cost changes, or potential changes, and be prepared to make pricing pricing adjustments accordingly. In this way the firm can control costs and pricing. The pricing policies for small-scale firms are the profit-oriented and cost based pricing. The target rates are the characteristics of the profit-oriented pricing policies. There are two methods that go under the cost based pricing policies.The first takes the full cost into consideration, including an allowance for all the overheads as calculated by the cost accountant, and adds the profit margin to the total. Full cost, cost plus and absorption costing are the terms by which this method is known. The second relates the price to the direct cost of the product only, and augments it by what is called the contrbution to cover both the overheads and the profit margin if sales reach the expected level. In shortly, cost-based pricing has two main divisions: absorbtion cost and direct cost. There is continuously a high inflation in our country. For that reason, smaller business has to preserve its own from high inflation and to determine its profitability. There are two main alternatives available for suplementing or replacing historical cost accounting.These are current purchasing power accounting and current cost accounting. In consequence, it is possible to say the following results about the pricing duration in the small-scale firms. 126Price should have to cover full (direct and overheads) costs plus the industry mark-up. Small-scale firm must be carefully about to obtain a particular return on investment(ROI). Price has nothing directly to do with costs; price should be set with regard to the market and the firm's own aims in it. Cost tell the firm only how well(or badly) the firm has done. The market conditions and buyer's value are also important in pricing. Profit-oriented and cost based pricing must take always the right costing, the demand of product, competitive structure and the factors affecting price sensitivity into consideration. In that case the target rates will be fully realistic to identify. Full-cost pricing is a quick and inexpensive method of approximation where the attitude of market is unknown, and there is a feeling that the full-cost price is a "just price'", i.e. that it is generally regarded as a fair means of fixing prices. The price arrived at by means of absorbtion costing compared with the price actually attainable purports to indicate(often misleadingly) the apparent profit or loss that would result from acceptence. Not so with the direct cost approach which tells the businessman only wheter the price offered is above or below his direct or out-of-pocket cost, but this provides him with a realistic basis for comparing the order in question with the available alternatives. Price is a vital element of the product image. A final set of strategies for pricing may be based on the market, but have particular regard to competition. Diferential advantage achieved through a better marketing mix leads a more inelastic demand; this gives any business much greater flexibility in setting its marketing policies. The innovator firms have a good deal advantage about this subject. Price can be become different for different products and different market- places. Small-scale firms must decide where to position its product on quality and price. "New Approach" in Purchasing should be accepted by small-scale firms. The factors affecting pricing must be identified and put in order. Small-scale firms should identify the competitive structure and the dynamic pricing strategy. The techniques of effective pricing can only ensure that a firm fully exploits its competitive advantages. How profitable effective pricing is depends upon the competitive advantages that a firm enjoys. Competitive advantages are of two general types: cost advantages and product advantages. These are the foundation of profitable prices. The prices which costumers are willing to accept are truly psychological in nature. The small-scale firm who is aware of psychological nature of pricing 127? should be able to develop a better pricing strategy than the small-scale firm who is unaware of psychological nature of pricing. Thus a potential profit can be gained easily. Small-scale firms should always follow market factors, external competitive advantage, internal cost efficiencies and factors affecting price sensitivity. The macro pricing strategy of any small-scale business involves how the firm defines its business. Typically, this is expressed in terms of the product it manufactures, the markets it serves, its channels of distribution and its expressed quality level. In shortly, the macro pricing strategy must fit in with this definition. Cost reduction tends to be emphasized at the planning or design stage. Firms that produce a variety of goods, as well as those producing a single product, tend to adopt estimated cost accounting in their financial accounting system. There are two system of cost management for each product. One system incorporates both cost reduction and cost control functions, while the other consists only of the cost reduction function. The latter system is more prevalent in today 's manufacturing environment. The companies should have an inward viewpoint and an outword viewpoint. In this way they determine the price initially based or a specific volume forecast for allocating capacity and short-run fixed costs. Then marketing personnal evauate whether the foreasted volume can be achieved at the computed price. In this scheme, the target price is viewed as a first approximation to a reasonable price, with adjustments made about this price to exploit the nature of demand and competition for the product. Alternatively, the target price could be also be determined first, independent of costs, by marketing people, based on their judgement as to what price would permit the company to achieve a desired sales volume. Then, after deducting a standart profit margin, the pricing formula would be run in reverse to get to a targeted cost for the product. This figure, if below the current projected costs, would stimulate two forms of activity. First, product designers would have to determine which features need to be eliminated from the product in order to reduce cost and how to "value-engineer" the product so that it becomes cheaper to produce. Second, process and manufacturing engineers would investigate methods and process changes that would permit sufficient production efficiencies.