Valco's Black Friday is here, and rumors of the biggest discounts ever have flooded the internet! Is it finally possible to snag Valco's top-notch headphones at half price? Is this the moment you find the audio device of your dreams at an unbelievably low cost? Well... no.
Prepare to be disappointed: we don't have discounts now or ever. But don't run away just yet – we have a completely reasonable and honest reason for it, which has nothing to do with anti-consumerism, conscience whitewashing, or any other similar excuses.
The truth is, at Valco, we're just too lazy and dumb to bother with any price tricks or campaigns.
Pricing usually follows the textbook model: first, a high price is set for skimming, then it's lowered to the "right" level. After that, the price is juggled up and down with sales until it's hiked up again for the big Black Friday campaign, just before the product model is phased out.
It's a bloody hassle and requires all sorts of coordination.
At Valco, we have a core value with a bit of a Latin flair called "mañana." We believe that anything you can do tomorrow, why do it today? This especially applies to making any kind of advance plans.
The very idea of starting some campaign just because "everyone else is doing it" is already annoying.
It's a heck of a lot easier to just price the product right from the start—no skimming, no price dumping. If we've sold 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 business model is simple: we make great products, sell them at a reasonable price, and spend the money on genuinely important things, like:
- Beer
- Child support
- To fast cars
- Big clocks
- For building Death Stars and conquering galaxies
The Price Juggling Show
But let's take a moment to talk about how Black Friday campaigns work and why we really don't stand a chance of jumping on that bandwagon.
- Leftovers from the warehouse: Usually, this time of year, the last batch of an expiring product is sold off, left haunting our or the manufacturer's warehouse. Kind of like finding half a Christmas chocolate at midsummer and thinking, "It'll still do." But we don't have any leftovers to sell. If we did, we'd tell you.
- Price hikes before discounts: It's common to bump up prices just before a sale, so they can be "discounted" more dramatically. We only have two headphone models, and if we tried to raise prices, our customers would know before we did. Plus, our moral compass is still intact enough to stop us from pulling that kind of stunt.
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Cream skimming ends: A new product is often priced high initially to "skim the cream" off the top. Then, when no one is willing to pay the premium anymore, it's sold at a "discount" for a more realistic price. At Valco, we've priced our products honestly from the start – maybe even foolishly.
As a result, we can't offer big discounts even to retailers, which has somewhat slowed down the wider availability of our products on store shelves. For the same reason, special models have a special price – part of their sale price goes to royalties, and our own margin doesn't cover that.
Comparative example
Let's see how the big boys play the price game. We'll use a couple of products from major manufacturers as examples, which we think are roughly in the same category as the VMK25. Unfortunately, we couldn't include our own VMK25 curve in the pictures – its price has pretty steadily been no more than €199, and the graph doesn't go that low.
Image 1: Skimming the cream and artificial drama
From both graphs, you can clearly see how the manufacturer starts with a price straight from the clouds (cream-skimming™) right at launch, but quickly drops it when it becomes clear that no one is willing to pay that much. After the initial dip, the price stabilizes more evenly, though there are a few "price shows" where they make the discount look prettier by first hiking the price up.
The second graph looks like a roller coaster: first, they skim the cream off the top, then drop the price down. Every time they want to boost sales, the price is jacked up to the sky and then "discounted." In this year's Black Friday frenzy, the price has been hiked up again, and next year this model will probably quietly disappear from the lineup. It seems the manufacturer's strategy is to swing the price around so much that the customer eventually loses any sense of what the product's real price even is.
What does Valco do?
We set the price fair right from the start. The VMK25 costs 199 euros, period. No price tricks. No skimming the cream at the beginning. If we've ever given discounts, there was a clear reason – like an empty warehouse and an even emptier bank account. And if we ever sell the rest cheaper to make way for a new model, we'll tell you straight up.
Is fairness boring? Maybe a little. Could we make more money another way? Probably. Are we too lazy to run campaigns? Absolutely!
That's why we don't have sales. We want our customers to always know they're getting a good deal—no hidden catches. And honestly, all that price fiddling and campaign tweaking takes away from what's really important: drinking beer.
Learn more about the history of Black Friday
If you want to dive deeper into the history of Black Friday—from the inspiring tales of Robinson Crusoe and Kekkonen to conspiracies and diplomatic notes—we recommend reading our blog, based on Dr. Rajaniemi's extensive knowledge of alternative history.
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