In this increasingly competitive business world, it is becoming more difficult to stand out from the crowd. Some entrepreneurs may approach this challenge by creating innovative products and services, others may decide to use low(er) prices as their competitive advantage.

From the business point of view, both strategies are absolutely valid and can be successful, if executed correctly.

At Foxy, we have identified early on in our entrepreneurial journey that we do not want to be known as the cheapest. Understandably, price is an important factor to a lot of clients, which is why we needed to find ways to overcome competitors beating us on price.

If you have been in business for a number of years, we are sure you would have come across something like this at one point:

“Just send us Foxy’s quote and we’ll beat it by 10%. We don’t even need to go and see your home.”

(Yes, this is an actual statement made by another home-staging company here in Brisbane.)

—

The topic of ‘How to deal with these companies’ gets talked about a lot in our Property Styling Network Facebook group, so we can only assume that this particular approach to go about business would be a pet peeve of many.

That’s why we’ve decided to share our Three Defence Strategies against price-undercutting companies.

Disclaimer: We are by no means trying to position ourselves as the experts here. All the tips we are about to share with you have so far worked really well for us here at Foxy and we hope they will help you too.

3 Tips to Deal with Companies Undercutting Your Prices

Price-conscious buyers are attracted to slogans like ‘Price Beat Guarantee’ or ‘We’ll beat it by 10%’, because they convey the impression that their purchasing decision is the most reasonable option. And this may well and truly be the case, provided it is for the exact same product.

Which brings us to our Tip #1.

1. Educate Your Clients

When we get a phone call from a client telling us about this other company offering them a 10% cheaper quote, we NEVER try to price-match. Instead, we approach it from an educational perspective.

“Make sure you are comparing apples with apples.”

is our usual response.

Encouraging the clients to have a look at the company’s Instagram to see their work to ensure they are happy with what they see – taking into account the number of accessories and cushions they use, the quality and price point of the furniture, making sure it matches the price point they are after for their home.

The reason we say this is because most people don’t realise there is a difference between the levels of styling. Sometimes they get three different Stylist recommendations from their agent, so as far as they are aware – we are all equal.

And that’s understandable, considering the majority of people only sell their homes a handful of times in their lifetime. When they’re lacking the knowledge & experience in this field, it becomes our job to educate them.

blackboard with who how where why questions written on them highlighting the importance of educating your client

2. Know Your Worth

Companies that pride themselves on being the cheapest can automatically be associated with lower quality products or poor customer service, whether that’s fair or not.

Therefore, the most important thing for you as a business owner is to have a crystal-clear idea of your competitive positioning.

What is it that makes you stand out in the market? What are you doing amazingly that makes people want to use your services rather than someone else’s?

“At Foxy, we want to be known for the quality of our service and all the things important to our agents – communication, flexibility & speed. There are all sorts of things we can do – we have different payment options, we do partial and integrated staging, we say YES to a lot of requests. There is a whole range of things within our service that aren’t PRICE-related, and our focus is we NEVER want to be the cheapest. It’s our job to show why we are the better stager and the better option from the ROI point of view. If that means we lose some work, we don’t love it, but it happens, and we accept that. We just try to be better at communicating and marketing our brand for next time.”

– Jake Shorter | Co-Owner of Foxy Home Staging

picture of Jake - Foxy's coowner and our Numbers Guy

3. Ignore & Outperform

Yes, it’s frustrating. It’s disheartening. We know… we ride this wave every month.

But if we could leave you with one last tip – it’s to not give in to the temptation of lowering your prices, or even worse – beating their quote even further. If you do, you will get caught up in a never-ending price war circle, devaluing your products & services in the process.

This is a very short-sighted approach. Instead – ignore and outperform them.

While they are caught up on beating you on price, you keep focusing on your business and what you can do better. Work tirelessly in the background, develop new ideas and create products or services that won’t be able to be beaten on price.

That’s what we’ve done with Foxy First Class – our premium, no sale-no pay offering. Can you beat a guaranteed peace of mind with a lower price?

Thank you for reading!

We sincerely hope you got some value out of this article. If you want to watch Phoebe and Jake talk about this topic, we’ve attached the FoxyTV episode here. The topic of Price-Undercutting Companies start at 6:10.