"We're not selling because we're too expensive"—really?

Price: A Convenient Scapegoat

When a sale falls through, the price provides an immediate, socially accepted explanation that doesn’t call into question the sales pitch, the product description, or the data used to position the product in the market. “We’re too expensive” shuts down the discussion rather than opening it up.

This explanation isn't always wrong—a price can indeed be out of line with the market. But it's invoked far more often than it holds true. A salesperson who loses a sale rarely reports, “The customer didn’t understand what set us apart” or “Our competitive benchmarking was outdated”—these explanations require a level of self-reflection that is harder to face than simply acknowledging that the price was too high.

This mechanism is directly linked to the one already identified in the article on collective governance in this issue: a decision (in this case, an assessment) made from a single perspective—that of sales—almost always fails to capture the full picture.

This reflex is all the more tempting because, on the surface, it exonerates everyone at once: the sales rep doesn’t have to question his sales pitch, the marketing team doesn’t have to revise its messaging, and management gets a simple explanation to pass on to higher-ups in the organization. The scapegoat works precisely because it satisfies everyone in the short term, at the cost of a corrective measure that misses the mark.

The #1 Real Problem: Poorly Communicated Value

A price is never judged in absolute terms. It is always judged relative to what the customer expects to get in return. When that value isn't clearly explained, the price automatically seems higher than it actually is—even if it hasn't changed by a single cent.

These figures tell a consistent story: price matters, but it is almost never the sole deciding factor, and it is consistently evaluated in light of perceived quality. A customer who finds a price “too high” is often saying—without putting it that way—that they did not perceive enough value to justify that price, not necessarily that the price itself is out of line with the market.

This distinction changes everything in terms of action: lowering a price doesn't solve anything if the real problem is that the value was never made visible in the first place.

Communicating value isn’t limited to a better-written sales pitch. It also involves the product description, featured customer reviews, the clarity of a warranty or related service—everything that, even before a customer speaks with a sales representative, shapes their perception of what the price actually includes. A company that invests in its price without investing in the visibility of its value is only doing half the job.

The Real Problem No. 2: Poor-Quality Data

The second suspect—one that is identified less often than the first—lies hidden within the data itself. A price deemed “too high” may simply be based on a flawed comparison: a competitor’s price that was incorrectly recorded, an outdated product benchmark, or two items that were mistakenly compared as equivalent when they are not.

In retail pricing specifically, this risk takes on a very concrete form: an incorrect comparison between two products (competitive matching) can lead one to believe that a price is out of line with the market when it is not, simply because the benchmark used for the comparison was incorrect. The observed symptom (stagnant sales, a price deemed too high) is identical in both cases; the cause—and therefore the solution—are, however, radically different.

Distinguishing a genuine pricing issue from a problem elsewhere

To put it this way: a true diagnosis takes multiple indicators into account before reaching a conclusion—never a single, isolated piece of feedback from the field. This is precisely what testing a price—a topic covered elsewhere in this report—allows us to verify objectively, rather than simply assuming it.

It really makes a difference to do your research before lowering the price

Lowering a price without first diagnosing the problem is like treating a symptom without knowing the underlying illness. If the real problem is communicating value, lowering the price doesn’t fix anything—it sacrifices profit margins while leaving the real problem intact, ready to resurface with the next product. If the real problem is inaccurate data, the price cut may even exacerbate an already poorly calibrated price-perception imbalance.

Conversely, a diagnosis that identifies the true cause opens the door to solutions that are less costly than lowering prices: strengthening the value proposition, correcting an erroneous product positioning, and updating a competitive benchmark. These corrective measures preserve margins while addressing the root cause rather than the symptom.

There is also an organizational benefit to this assessment, beyond the individual case being addressed. A company that makes a habit of verifying facts before reaching a conclusion builds, decision by decision, a culture in which price is no longer the default response to poor performance—a concept that aligns directly with the principle of collective governance discussed elsewhere in this issue.

The Mistakes That Keep the Scapegoat Alive

• Accept only one piece of feedback from the field as evidence. A sales representative who says, “We’re too expensive,” is reporting a perception, not necessarily a diagnosis based on verifiable, comparable data.
• Never verify the comparison data. An outdated competitive benchmark can create a price gap that does not actually exist.
• Lowering prices as a default response. It's often the quickest solution to implement, but rarely the least costly in the long run if it addresses the wrong problem.
• Never go back to the sales process after a diagnosis. If the real problem is communicating value, the sales teams need to be equipped accordingly—not just told that “it’s not about the price.”

This rigorous analysis aligns with the reasoning already set forth in the flagship article of this special issue: a price that is taken seriously is guided by data, not by the first explanation that comes to mind.

FAQ

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See also in this feature

• Why Do So Few Companies Really Manage Their Prices?
• Testing Your Prices Without Losing Customers: The Method
• Pricing: Why Pricing Decisions Should Never Be Left to a Single Person

Sources: OpinionWay for Bonial, “The French and Consumer Spending,” press release dated June 13, 2025 · Gartner, “Magic Quadrant for Data Quality Solutions,” 2020