When offering a product line in a market that's very heavily populated with competitors, about the only way to get ahead sometimes is to offer an excellent deal. Competing on price alone can be extremely difficult, but sometimes it's just the most effective way to lure customers. Htek recently took a step to celebrate its UC9 enterprise-grade IP endpoint release, and brought a new offer to the Channel Partners Exhibition to show off in voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) service.
With the new offer, available only for show attendees, those who registered at Htek's website and operate out of the United States and Canada will get access to an impressive offer. Not only will there be a promotional bundle of two of Htek's most popular phones for VoIP use, but more besides. The bundle includes the UC926 and UC923, gigabit Internet protocol (IP) phones that boast multi-line capability—the UC926 has six lines, while its cohort offers three—and color displays, where the UC926 has a larger 4.3 inch display compared to its counterpart's 2.8 inch version.
Said phones will be available for $129, a substantial discount from the normal suggested retail price of $328. The bundle improves from there, however, as it also includes a two year warranty, along with an additional ongoing discount for those channel partners, allowing for improved profitability on each sale. Throw in the fact that a variety of big-name firms already turn to Htek—including Alcatel-Lucent, Broadsoft and Yeastar—and there should be plenty of interested users ready to join the ranks of such notable users at greatly improved prices.
While it's not always a good move to offer spectacularly low prices, it can be a good move under some conditions. It's a great idea if it's used as a way to draw in new customers, or reward very long term customers; people pay attention to pricing, particularly if a good or service is particularly commoditized. Offering bargain-basement prices as an inducement—particularly if these are temporary—takes advantage of the visceral pricing reaction to pull in new users, which in turn goes a long way toward keeping those new users in the fold.
It's all a matter of taking new business and holding it; price concessions do well, especially in a field full of competitors like VoIP. It's not likely to last long, but those who take Htek up on its offer should find a firm to stick with for the long run.
