what are your thoughts on this?

It is indeed a fact that consumers tend to be value maximisers, where monetary cost is involved. They take into account the pricing of the product before anything else, before making a purchase of the item itself. It is known that companies would compete with one another by penetrating the pricing in order to entice more customers who are searching for the lowest prices. However, in reality, to win customer's loyalty, product performance is the catalyst to gaining it.

Product service quality, customer satisfaction and the companies' profitability are all connected. When the product performance exceeds the customer's expectations, they would be satisfied, but if the customer's expectations is higher than the product performance, they would not be satisfied. And with great satisfaction, comes loyalty to the branding.

Take SKII for example, a beauty brand, which offers a wide range of beauty products. SKII products are not cheap as compared to other beauty brands. They are quite heavily priced, with one of their best sellers Facial Treatment Essence, a mere 70ml bottle would cost you over $100. A bottle like that, you can get it below $50 from other brands. Albeit pricing their products at such cost, up till today, SKII still remain as one of the top beauty brands in the continent.

Besides using celebrities as ambassadors for their brands to market it, SKII has given their customers the power to review their products on their official website, allowing transparency between the company and their customers. The constructive and honest reviews has thus attracted more consumers to try out their beauty products despite costing more than the average beauty brands. Moving on, exclusive memberships and privileges are offered to those who stay loyal to the brand.

Different people perceives different value of the brand and their products. It depends on the characteristics and the needs of that customer themselves. Therefore, Low Pricing is not the only key to winning Customer's Loyalty.