The Great Price Deception!

For my birthday one year, I wanted a good quality camp chair. I wanted top of the line, high quality sturdy and comfortble. This was my big birthday present after all, so I wanted something over $100.

We went to the camping store, and after playing Goldilocks and testing every chair in the store, the one I loved was... $29.

I was gutted. I wanted a better chair than a $29 one. But I bought it and it's still comfy and going strong years later.

My comfy camp chair in action

This all comes from a thing called "percieved value", you start with an idea in your mind of what you think something should cost - whether the product or service actually costs that or not is another story.

Most times, when you are shopping around for a product or service, you will already have an idea of what you expect it to cost already set in your head when you start looking.

But the issue is that your "perceived value" price and the real-world price of what that service or product actually costs sometimes don't match up.

Particularly in the unregulated world of photography, that price will buy very different things with each different business.

Let's say you have a price in your head of $900 to spend on photography.

Photographer A is offering 20 digital files in an online gallery for $900 while Photographer B is offering 10 digital files with matching fine art prints for $900. At first glance it looks as if Photographer A is better value because they are offering more digital files.

But what you can't see in that initial price is that Photographer A has less experience so some of the photos in your gallery might be out of focus, some look awkward and just not "you", the colours might be weird, it's a bit of a "meh" experience for your family where you weren't really sure about how it was all going to happen or what to expect and you still have to spend more time and money printing your photos - which will also look "meh" because you went to the quickest/cheapest store to print, if you even printed them at all.

Photographer B gets to know your family before the session, talks you through the process and helps select your clothing, captures the exact sort of photos you want, connects with each of you and helps you relax and connect with each other during the shoot, offers chilled drinks and snacks during your appointments, gives you full guided assistance through the selection and design process, delivers fine art print products with every order alongside those digital files and creates custom products on request.