![]() ![]() Fortunately, the nice folks at Price Intelligently used their value-based pricing tools to query 50 respondents regarding how much they would pay for an hour of housekeeping. If I could determine the customers’ willingness to pay for my service, I’d be able to translate the abstract concept of value into a quantifiable price band. Uncovering the Willingness to Pay of the Taskposters Competitor and cost plus pricing strategies are easier to comprehend and apply because they’re fairly straightforward, but by not attempting to harness the value of the intangible aspects, you’re missing out on an opportunity for profit. They’re often the reason one business has a competitive advantage over another. Generally, this includes intellectual property, brand recognition, copyrights, forecasts, etc., but the skills and abilities an individual brings to a company (or a TaskRabbit auction) are also intangible assets. So what is an intangible asset? Intangible assets are assets that have no physical representation, but add significant product value. In fact, I needed to choose a proper exchange rate for my time, skill, and labor, which meant I had to factor intangible assets into my pricing consideration or risk allowing the market to commodify my unique contribution. First of all, without having a physical product to sell, such as in retail, it didn’t make sense to base my strategy solely on those of my competitors or internal costs of production. I decided to take a step back and see what I could do differently to make more money. I started to lose sight of the value of my service, and it left me feeling taken advantage of. By completely taking myself out of the pricing process, I was allowing a stranger to assign value to my skillset and time without having ever experienced it. I even experimented with an option that allowed me to simply confirm the fixed price posted by the website, which just made matters worse. It also became increasingly difficult to rationalize raising the price back up to a reasonable rate, and I began to get discouraged with what was originally a fun way to do new things, meet people, and make some extra money. Interestingly, as I continued to accept offers to work for less, my valuation of my own time and labor began to get skewed. However, I found myself having a difficult time sticking to the prices I set for myself, and in an effort to secure more work, would continually accept bids to do tasks for less money. Time spent cleaning a home could not be priced the same as time spent moving a one bedroom apartment from Cambridge to Brookline, for example. Since the tasks ranged significantly across the board, I tried to align my pricing with the amount of effort each errand called for. However, you’ll soon find out I had a rough time pricing my services in the beginning.Īt first I approached bidding from a competitor based pricing angle - I researched how much others in the industry were charging for similar services, and priced a bit lower to compensate for my lack of insurance or expertise. ![]() Having never set prices for anything before, I was excited to challenge myself to think in terms of how much I valued my time and skillset. In a way though, TaskRabbit seems like the ideal entrepreneurial setup for those doing the tasks you set your own schedule, explicitly state what you’re good at, and pick your own prices. There really is no such thing as a bad ‘task’ as long as someone is willing to do it. Some people take it to the extreme, enlisting taskrabbits to write their thank you notes or exchange belongings following a breakup. Tasks vary significantly in terms of skill, ranging anywhere from laundry, leaf raking, and walking dogs, to furniture assembly, babysitting, cooking.you get the picture. Essentially, it’s a marketplace for people to post all types of odd jobs and errands they'd like to get done. ![]() ![]() I’d never really thought about pricing anything until I joined an online labor auctioning website called TaskRabbit. ![]()
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