A Pricing Experiment Comes to an End....

On January 1st, 2008 I cut the price of BV Commerce from ($999 to $1499) to $499 for all versions and included source code. This was based on projections made from previous sales and discounts offered. When we put the $999 version on sale the volume went up (no surprise). What was interesting is that no matter how deep the discount the sales volume went up on almost the same slope. Excel financial forecasts said that at $499 we should see a 100% or great increase in the number of licenses sold.

On December 30th, 2008 license sales of BV Commerce are up about 30% over the previous year. That's a nice jump but not the expected 100% or more. That's what happens sometimes with financial forecasts. There are a number of outside factors including the economy, marketing and time since release date of BV Commerce 5 that all contribute to this. You can do some quick math and see that 30%+ licenses at -50% price adds up to a little bit less than 30% drop in BV Commerce license revenue. Fortunately, DotNetBB, SQL Find and Replace and consulting services have all done very well this year. We've also been able to cut costs on many fronts and 2008 was a good year for BV Commerce.

Now, for the bad news... the price of $499 per store isn't sustainable in the long run given the constant updates required to keep ecommerce software current. On January 1st, 2009 (that's two days away) the price of BV Commerce will go back to $999 per store. It will however include source code which is did not in 2007 at that price.

If you need to purchase licenses or know anyone else who needs to purchase license I would recommend buying them tomorrow, December 31st.