Used-based pricing and strategy

The customers don’t want to buy. They want to use

The customers don’t want to buy. They want to use

Some years ago, a German company, an air compressors manufacturer, stopped selling air compressors to customers. From then on, they could get them for free. But it didn’t mean that company’s C-suite leaders were doing this for charity. They charged their customers, but not for devices themselves. The clients paid only for what they really needed.

You don’t need a computer or a smartphone. You buy these devices to work, play, exchange messages with your friends, watch videos, etc. Or, if we dig deeper, you possess them out of the needs to stay in touch, to have fun, or to win a social contest.

You don’t need a car — you, probably, buy one to move yourself from point A to point B. Or to show off. Or both. Clayton Christensen called this approach JTBD, Jobs To Be Done. Customers “hire” a product to do some “job” for them. But paradoxically, even some years ago, they didn’t pay for the job; they paid for devices.

Even if you use your car every…