Pricing Experiments
I'm dealing with a rather strange pricing dilemma now, actually.  My startup sells a somewhat-arcane electronic test instrument which is generally used by larger corporations, government agencies and defense contractors, and universities/national laboratories.  It's advertised for sale at $4995.00 in 1-4 unit quantities, which is an insane bargain compared to what these users are accustomed to paying for similar equipment.<p>I sold one to a particular Fortune 500 company a few months ago.  Recently someone else from the same company -- a fairly highly-placed manager, going by his LinkedIn profile -- emailed to ask for a quote on a second unit.  Except he insists that his budget is in the $4800 range, and he needs the quote to come in under $4995 in order to make the purchase.<p>I can't begin to guess how to interpret this, or how to answer it.  Lowball offers are nothing new, and generally easy to turn down since demand for this piece of gear is in line with projections.  And there's plenty of room for negotiation on purchases of >4 units.  But a lowball offer for one unit, from a company with a $15B market cap, asking for a discount that's negligible to the point of wasting both parties' time?  WTF?<p>I'd like to maintain a good relationship with this company and do further business with them, but I don't understand the signals they're sending with regard to price tolerance.  <i>Obviously</i> if I were asking $5995.00 instead of $4995.00, they would have tried to drill down to $5895.00.  I have to believe that the same would be true if the advertised price were $3995.00.  Could I have avoided this bizarre negotiation by picking a price of $X495.00 instead of $X995.00?