SIGG Should Try a Little Price Gouging
Last Christmas I asked for -- and received -- a SIGG water bottle. After checking it out for a while, my wife decided that she wanted one too. Now our daughter wants in the action. Although she's only 18 months old, she loves carrying Mommy's SIGG around and drinking out of the sports top.
Tonight, I figured that I'd hop online and start looking at bottle designs for the little one. I hopped online, but I couldn't look at bottle designs. SIGG's recent popularity has overwhelmed the small, Swiss company.
Due to the incredible demand for SIGG bottles, we are forced to close down the MySIGG shop. We are also unable to supply any other Internet business for Sigg Brand. Our Swiss factory is working around the clock to produce and ship more bottles to us, but the demand has currently and for the near future - exceeded the supply.
Huh.
Now let us tell you what we are doing at SIGG Switzerland to manage this situation:
- Reconfiguring our SIGG Switzerland facility and adding new equipment.
- Hiring new production workers and having them work around the clock, 3 shifts and weekends.
- Allocating 50% of our global production for North America.
- Once summer is over - we will be able to re-assess our supply situation and react.
Might I offer a humble suggestion? Try a little price gouging. Jack up the prices. It would be good for your customers. Right now, SIGG water bottles are sold out across the internet. Good luck finding an online store that still has some in stock. Higher prices would drive down the demand leaving some supplies available. While the water bottles would be more expensive, customers that really wanted to buy one now would be able to.
Higher prices would be good for SIGG too. Higher prices would enable them to expand more quickly, to pay their workers better (bonuses for those 3 shifts and weekends!), and to invest in more equipment and quality controls.
Apparently, SIGG is choosing to be "nice" by not gouging their customers. I wish they would "gouge" me. Then I might actually be able to afford one of their bottles.
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