Valco's Black Friday is here, and rumors of the biggest discounts ever have taken over the internet! Is this finally your chance to grab Valco's top-notch headphones for half the price? Is this the moment to find your dream audio device at an unbelievably low price? Well… no.
Prepare to be disappointed: we have no discounts now, nor will we ever. But don't run away just yet – we have a completely logical and honest reason for it, which has nothing to do with anti-consumerism, greenwashing, or any other similar excuses.
The truth is that at Valco, we are simply too lazy and stupid to bother with any price tricks or elaborate campaigns.
Usually, the textbook approach is to set a high price at first to "skim the cream," then drop it to the "right" level. After that, the price fluctuates with sales promotions until it's raised again before a big Black Friday campaign, which is held just before the product is permanently discontinued.
That’s a hell of a lot of work and requires all kinds of coordination. At Valco, we have a core principle inspired by Latin culture called "mañana." We believe that anything that can be done tomorrow doesn’t need to be done today. This applies especially to all forms of advance planning. The very thought of doing something just because "everyone else is doing it" is frustrating enough.
It's much easier to simply price the product correctly right from the start – no skimming the cream, no price dumping. If we’ve ever sold something at a discount, there’s been a clear and justified reason for it – like a pre-order. And it definitely wasn’t planned in advance.
Our approach is simple: we make great products, sell them at a reasonable price, and spend the money on genuinely important things like:
- Beer
- Child support
- Fast cars
- Big watches
- Building a Death Star and conquering galaxies
The Pricing Drama
But let’s take a moment to look at how Black Friday campaigns typically work and why we really don’t even have the chance to join in.
- Clearing out leftovers: Usually, this time of year is about selling the last batches of outdated products that have been haunting warehouses. Like when you find half a Christmas chocolate bar during midsummer and think, "That’s probably still fine." But we don’t have any leftovers to sell. If we did, we’d tell you.
- Price hikes before discounts: Often, prices are raised just before a campaign to create bigger “discounts.” We only have two headphone models, and if we tried to raise prices, our customers would know before we even did. Plus, our moral compass is still intact enough to stop us from doing that.
- The cream-skimming ends: New products are often priced high initially to "skim the cream." Once no one pays the premium anymore, they’re sold at a more realistic “discounted” price. At Valco, we’ve priced our products fairly from the beginning – perhaps even stupidly.
As a result, we can’t even offer big discounts to resellers, which has slowed down our products’ entry into major retail stores. For the same reason, special models come with special prices – part of their sales price goes to royalties, and our margin doesn’t stretch to cover that.
A Comparative Example
Let’s take a look at how the big players handle pricing games. We’ll use a couple of products from major manufacturers that we think are in the same category as the VMK25. Unfortunately, we couldn’t include the VMK25 price curve in the graphs – its price has always been stable at a maximum of €199, and the graph doesn’t go that low.
Figure 1: Cream-Skimming and Artificial Drama
Both graphs clearly show how manufacturers initially price their products sky-high (cream-skimming™) at launch, only to quickly drop the price when it becomes clear no one is willing to pay that much. After the initial drop, the price stabilizes, with occasional “price shows” where the price is first raised to make discounts look better.
The second graph looks like a roller coaster: first, the cream is skimmed, then the price drops. Whenever they want a sales spike, the price is raised again and then “discounted.” This year, during the Black Friday frenzy, the price has been raised again, and next year, this model will probably quietly disappear from the lineup. It seems the manufacturer’s strategy is to manipulate prices so much that the customer eventually loses track of what the product’s real price even is.
What Does Valco Do?
We set a fair price from the get-go. The VMK25 costs €199, period. No price tricks. No cream-skimming at launch. If we’ve ever offered discounts, there’s been a clear reason for it – like an empty warehouse and an even emptier bank account. And if we ever sell off the last units cheaply to make room for a new model, we’ll tell you directly.
Is fairness boring? Maybe a little. Could we make more money another way? Probably. Are we too lazy for campaigns? Absolutely!
That’s why we don’t have sales. We want our customers to always know they’re getting a good deal – without any hidden catches. And honestly, any kind of price manipulation or campaign planning takes away time from what really matters: drinking beer.
Learn More About Black Friday History
If you want to dive deeper into Black Friday’s history – from Robinson Crusoe and Kekkonen’s inspiring story to conspiracies and diplomatic crises – we recommend reading our blog, based on Dr. Rajaniemi’s extensive knowledge of alternative history.
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