Crazy innit? These things are sold in the public retail market, they’re one of the most complex items of equipment known to man, and yet they come with as much instructions as a feltpen.

Incidentally, this probably would have all been fine if you had a proper console, like a PS3

Mine runs fine. It’s the phone line that gives me grief. How many modern first world countries have phone lines that disconnect each time it rains? Sigh.

Pricing has got to be the hardest part of marketing your own business, getting that balance between profit and perceived customer value. There are a couple of things that spring to mind whilst reading your inquiry.
1) Is there profit in the donuts at the moment? If not, then there is a definite business case to increase the price.
2) If you are the only business in the locality that makes fresh donuts then yes it makes business sense to price them at a premium to reflect that fact. The tricky part is will your local market cope with the price increase.
3) Price out the competition, what are they selling their (not so fresh) product for, if it is in or around your price then yes you definitely have a good reason to increase your price.
4) I am a firm believer in pricing at 49, 99 cent increments, why? If your donut was 59 cents, would anyone really notice if it went to 69 cents; if your sandwiches were $2.49 would they really notice if they went to $2.99 The point I’m trying to make is people look at the dollars not the cents and if the price ends in a 9 before the change and it ends in a 9 after the change, generally most people wont notice unless the dollar amount increases.
5) As for the price of your donuts now, if you feel you can increase them why not increase them to 69 cents, again people will remember paying 60cents the fact that they are 60 something cents now probably wont scare many away.

The one thing to remember about pricing is you MUST have confidence in it, you have to believe that the price you have set is still giving your customers good value, if you can do that it will make the process lots easier. With that in mind it is often a good exercise to work out the actual costs of your product so you have a clear understanding of the profit margin. If you know anyone else in the same industry that you can talk to, it can be worth while asking them what size margins they set on the products that way you will get a better idea of whether you are charging too little or not enough.

One other thought, is there any merit in making a different flavoured donut? Rational here would be to make a new flavour and you can do one of two things, increase the price for the new flavour or introduce it at the current price of the original donuts whilst increasing the original donut price to where you want it. Which ever way you look at it, the customer will still get a donut at the original price but more importantly you will be able to test the new higher price at the same time (whilst minimising the risk of the overall turnover).

Hope some of this helps, if you have any other questions feel free to ask

Thanks for the inquiry, pricing is always a difficult thing to set, especially if you’re feeling your way in a new market or starting up a new venture. The mark up question is quite hard to answer without nowing your costs etc, generally in the sports retail industry in Britain (where I worked for 12 yrs) we used to mark up by 200 – 300% most of that stock of course came in from Asia quite cheap to begin with), with that sort of mark up I would guess it should cover your costs and leave a extra to expand. Of course you may not be able to use this model if you were making your own apparrel.

The other areas that would need to be considered is the competition, who are you up against, what are they charging, how do you fair against them in price, do you have room to increase your pricing?

I am quite happy to sit down with you and discuss this further (my first meeting is always free, if you are in or around Christchurch )