CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Prices go by many names. It is all around us. The price of a worker is wages, incomes taxes are the price we pay for the privilege of making money. In economic theory, prices policy tends to be relegated to a secondary role and attention is devoted to other dimensions of competitive strategy. It is important to be clear what we mean by price.
According to Ode (2011), the term price simply means the amount of money that you actually pay in order to buy a good or service so that any relation between the buyer and seller is confined to the transaction itself. This definition is inadequate for marketing purposes because it ignores guarantees, after soles services, installation, maintenance, consultancy, delivery, credit, etc. which distinguish one transaction from the next but often “free” or included in the price.
Price in marketing is still broader than the economists conception. It is as much as the total product i.e the amount of money paid to acquire a good or service plus the cost of guarantees, after sales services, maintenance, consultancy, delivery, credit etc.
Price plays a central role in economy as a whole. It balance demand and supply, provide an incentive for new product distributes income between buyer and sellers, professionals consider price from two perspective which are consumer (suppliers or services of the product) and provider (services provided for a fee to product users). An organization that wants to provide a satisfactory marketing mix (product, price, place and promotion). The price of its product must be acceptable to target marketing members. Price has a direct impact on company profit and all other elements of the marketing mix. Thus, the price of a product can be on influence on how consumers perceive it and how prospective seller attempts to optimizing this return. He tries to deal with volume, cost and price but he cannot keep them all in the air at a time. If he increases the price of his product, his volume of sales will fall and if he reduces the price, the volume of sales will increase.