Competing on price or quality

It's not unusual to end up in a price discussion in a customer contact. It is important therefore to in advance have thought about what is included in product pricing. What do the customer pay for? Anyone can offer a low price, but can your competitors offer what you have?
It is common to speak of "quality-to price ratio”. As a customer you may strive for the lowest price, but it can be expensive to buy cheaply. You do not want to pay a high price for a product that keeps mediocre quality, but it is conceivable to sometimes cut down on quality and instead go for a cheaper product. However, no one wants to buy a product with such low quality that one cannot get the expected out of the product. This can lead to a need of byuing a new or more expensive product and then it becomes expensive to buy cheaply. Although it sounds like the obvious, it is important to clarify this for the customer.
A product may possess a higher price due to the fact that it is based on reagents or components of higher quality and hence are more expensive in purchase.
Maybe your quality system requires more resources than your competitor’s and hence the product is safer for the customer to use. You might be more accessible to the customer than your competitors are. You may have specialized knowledge and therefore can provide better service and support around the products than competitors can. If this is important for the client and included in the price, the customer will most likely see it as getting high value in exchange for the money paid and that the product holds a high "quality-to-price ratio”.