What is value?

My hubby and I went on vacation for a long weekend. We ended up in a little bitty town in New Mexico. I learned some interesting things.

1. They had 2 seasons there: Tourist hiking, horseback riding, atv touring, summer season and Tourist skiing, snowmobiling, winter sports season. Summer season started after June and went until October 14, and Winter season started mid-November and went until April. Everything closes in that little town for a month between seasons. Most of the restaurants close and all the activities close, and even the motels close. On our last day there, October 15, we ended up eating bar food. The pizza take-out had your choice of pepperoni and sausage pizza. No, you couldn't have pepperoni on your sausage pizza. The Value to the residents was the tourist activities and the money they brought in. Not the drop-in traffic. It was specific to the season. The Value to the customers was access to tourist activities without the overcrowding.
2. There were lots of "Down Home, Mom and Pop" diners there and one upscale restaurant there. Average check size for 2 people in the diners was about $30-$40. The meal we had at the upscale restaurant cost us $82. One place you could get Elvis burgers, the other you could get Elk Filet Mignon. One place had a 50-minute wait because though they had plenty of tables, they didn't have enough folks in the kitchen. So people walked in, discovered the 50-minute wait time, and walked out. The other place had people walk out because they looked at the prices in the menu. We saw two parties that came in, sat down, got the menus, gasped, and left. The owners made no apologies for how much they charged. They watched $300-$400 of potential orders per party walk out. Was the food worth it? Yes. Would we eat there every day? No, but on Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, or our Anniversary, sure. The Value of the Mom and Pops to customers was the convenience and the price. The value of the Bistro was the quality of the food.
3. The hotel we stayed in was in the midst of a take-over. We didn't know that. The guy who ran the Best Western across the street was helping his 2nd in command open his own motel. So this guy was helping someone compete with him. Unfortunately, not all the information posted on the back of the doors in the rooms was current. If you wanted to contact the front desk, you had to use your cell phone because there were no phones in the room. The phone number was listed on the posted information...see above. We had no heat so we called what we thought was the front desk. The woman who answered worked for the company that had sold the motel, and she had no idea what I was talking about. And she didn't have the number of the front desk or the local manager. We did get the problem fixed the next morning, but that was a COLD night! The Value that kept us at this motel was the customer service we received when we tried to resolve our problems. The Value of the other motels was you never had to leave your room to have a good time. But we didn't drive 14 hours out just to stay in a motel for 2 days and watch reruns of Big Bang Theory.

So who determines the value of the goods and services? You can get a ball cap for $10 or one with a silly phrase for $26. Everything in a tourist town is more expensive because the things they sell there are unique to the area. If the value of the hat is in keeping your head warm and the sun out of your eyes, $10 seems a good price. If the value of the hat is a memento of your visit and there are stories attached to it, $26 would seem like a good price. There were some paintings by local artists I would have liked to have examined, but I have no place to put them. I have enough memento t-shirts and hats to last a lifetime. I got some great pictures!

If you're upset that too many people think you're too expensive, they are looking for the $10 hat. If you get the people who think what you offer is great and would pay twice the amount you ask, then you have the $26 hat that they're looking for. Offer the goods or services that are unique and precious, because people can go to Walmart, YouTube, or Amazon to get the cheaper stuff. If the only thing that differentiates you from the other sellers is the price, you need to improve your product or service.