Holograms 1.0 Demo Video Now Up!
I’m still in Switzerland (the fondue is really good here) but I recorded a demo video for Holograms before we left. Hopefully, it will be available on the iTunes store soon. But in the meantime, check out the demo video! Also, I’m trying to decide whether to sell it for 99 cents or $1.99. I did put a lot of work into it but people always prefer cheaper. Any suggestions?
June 1st, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Don’t cheep out. $1.99, but if you must, a limited intro offer of $0.99.
June 1st, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Hmmm … tempting…
June 1st, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Unless you feel like you’ll *more* than double your sales by setting the price to $0.99, you should go for the higher price.
(2x the customers means 2x the support mail, less time to work on the next app, etc.)
June 1st, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Your product is so much better than the majority of 99c stuff that could never stand to be priced any higher – so position yourself above them.
June 1st, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Yeah, I agree with that. It’s easier having half as many customers if you can get the same profit. But it’s impossible to know exactly how the price affects sales. I’ve heard that free apps get downloaded about 100x as much as paid apps. So maybe $.99 apps get downloaded 10x as much as $1.99, in which case it’s better to go with $.99. But it’s hard to guess.
June 1st, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Hmm … Si has actually beta tested the product so maybe I should listen to him…
June 1st, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Yeah – also I was going to say that the demo video is nice because it shows the effect well (better than expected). It’s as effective in this video as it is in ‘real life’ on the iPhone screen.
I just noticed, by the way, that the setting for the red/blue effect really ought to be a slider toggle switch (should it not?)
June 1st, 2009 at 3:32 pm
It *should* be a slider switch, but there’s a bug in iPhone OS 2.0 with slider switches in tables so I’ve implemented my own text version because backwards compatibility seemed more important than slider switches.
June 1st, 2009 at 3:34 pm
FURTHERMORE(!)…
At 99c you attract the “99c crowd”. These are the same people who throw money into coin-operated machines. They don’t make considered purchases… and they are likely to give negative feedback a la “This app sux…not worth the money” if they don’t fall in love with it.
You want the kind of customers who see $1.99 and decide to at least look at some screenshots, demo videos or other users’ comments before they buy. They know what to expect and will give an honest review.
I know it’s not really that black and white, but that’s my opinion. You don’t want to disappoint hundreds of 99c-app-buyers when you can impress fewer members of a better clientele 🙂
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:08 am
I’d have to disagree with Si and I actually see his logic pointing the other way.
It’s hard to think that there’s a huge difference between the $.99 crowd and the $1.99 crowd. I think that in either case, a certain value is expected and I don’t think there’s a huge jump in how critical customers are. Maybe if you’re talking about a $9.99 app, then you’ll see people spending exponentially more time in your app.
Anyway, if more profit is your goal then Si’s logic would point to $.99 since people who “throw money into coin-operated machines” are less likely to think hard about buying your app or not. They just see something cool and buy it.
The real answer is much more complicated. Real sales depends on how high you place in the app market. Obviously $.99 apps do better. On the other hand, you would have to sell half as many apps at $1.99 but you’re likely to place much lower in the app market due to lower volume.
My suggestion? Maybe do $1.99 but also build a lite version with a subset of capabilities. If your lite version gets a lot of downloads and high ratings, and the volume of sales at $1.99 seems paltry, that might indicate that you should lower the price. Either way, once it’s at $.99 it would be a mistake to move the price up.
June 3rd, 2009 at 1:14 am
$1.49 then 🙂
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:55 am
I have no data to back this up, but I would think you could sell more than twice as many apps at .99 cents. Everybody is willing to throw a dollar away to try an app. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t even look at apps that cost more than .99 cents.
Plus if overall sales is your goal, cheaper should be better. I bet you get a boat load of people who buy the app at .99 just based on the name alone. Who wouldn’t want their own hologram generator?
June 5th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Thanks everyone for your comments! You’ve all given me a lot to think about. I keep on going back and forth on this. But ultimately, I think it’s more important to get the app widely distributed at the beginning. So if I can get the app approved by WWDC, then it’ll be $.99 for the first week. Hopefully by then, it’ll have enough users that it’ll continue to grow through word of mouth.
June 6th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Seriously, that was amazing. I’m pretty sure you will be contacted by other developers again about using your hologram effect.