How to sell a pair of socks for 150 yuan?

How to sell a pair of socks for 150 yuan? One day, the colleagues in the office were working hard, and Brother Xian suddenly said:

How much are you willing to spend on a pair of socks?

Everyone immediately started to discuss, some said 20 at most, some said 30, and some friends gritted their teeth and said 50.

Brother Xian couldn't help but sigh after hearing this, you guys are really not brave enough.

How can you be brave without money? Everyone couldn't help but complain silently.

Brother Xian took out a pair of socks and said: These socks are 150 a pair.

Are you crazy! A pair of socks sold for 150? It doesn't look special. The friends said that we don't understand the world of the rich.

01 Who is willing to buy such expensive socks?

Brother Xian continued to ask, who do you think you can sell socks for 150 a pair to?
Everyone said in unison:

"It must be the rich! Who else would be willing to buy such expensive socks except the rich?"
Hearing this, Brother Xian wanted to laugh but was a little helpless, and reminded us: You have to think with operational thinking.

Operational thinking? The friends stopped joking and began to seriously think about the question raised by Brother Xian.

The first step of operation should be to identify the users. The users of a pair of socks priced at 150 yuan cannot be simply summarized as the rich.

Just like Temu, if the user positioning is just "poor people", it may not be successful. Its positioning is "small town youth" in third- and fourth-tier cities.

So what is the user positioning of this pair of 150 yuan socks?

"Fashion experts!"
Some friends quickly thought of it.

"Sports enthusiasts, environmentalists, caring people..."
It must be said that the friends in the office are very active in thinking, and a lot of ideas popped up in a while. Brother Xian nodded approvingly and continued to ask:

"Now that the target users have been determined, what should we do next?"
This time we all know how to proceed, and of course we need to clarify the needs.

02 Why do they buy such expensive socks?

In the previous link, we roughly determined that our target users are four categories: fashionistas, sports enthusiasts, environmentalists, and caring people. Now, we need to determine the needs of these groups.

1) Fashionistas

Most of these people are young, full of personality, and seek public recognition and imitation, so for them, the main demand is to show off.

It can let others see that I am wearing a pair of Unique Socks, which is very cool and dazzling, and it is best to let everyone know that the price of this pair of socks is very unusual.

2) Sports enthusiasts

The needs of sports enthusiasts are relatively simple, which is nothing more than functional guarantees, such as comfort, sweat absorption, breathability, deodorization, etc.

If the idea is bolder, the demand can also be that the socks do not need to be changed and washed every day, and they can be dried in a few minutes after washing, etc.

3) Environmentalists

Environmentalists have many needs, such as protecting natural resources, reducing environmental pollution, and making proper use of land.

Specifically, the ingredients of socks are all recyclable and renewable, the production process of socks is pollution-free, and buying socks can actually protect some endangered species.

4) Caring people

For caring people, the need is to help people in need.

If buying socks can also do charity, it would be even better.

03 How to sell to them?

After clarifying the needs, we have come to the last step, how to sell to them?

After all, no one is stupid, and a pair of socks is indeed a bit expensive at 150 yuan, so we need to provide customized solutions based on their needs.

1) Show-off needs

How to sell to people who want to show off? Let me first talk about an unorthodox solution.

Generally speaking, it is difficult to show off something like socks, because it is worn inside, unlike clothes and bags, which are exposed outside.

Therefore, if you want to show off through socks, I think you must work hard on product design and make it recognizable.

For example, if I design a gold color, it's nonsense to say that wealth should not be exposed. I want others to know that I am rich, how can the color not stand out? (No wonder the gold-colored Apple mobile phone was popular for a time)

Of course, the gold color scheme is a bit empty, because it is indeed a bit rustic, which can easily make people mistakenly think that they have bad taste, and generally rich people dare not make such a bold attempt.

Let's think about it again, who else has the need to show off?

People who pursue fashion, they can't wait to let everyone know that they are at the forefront of fashion, dyeing green hair, tying dreadlocks, and wearing dad shoes (maybe I have a misunderstanding of fashion, so this is just a rough description, please don't spray it lightly).

So, how should I sell products to these people? Give the product a sense of fashion, popularity, and scarcity (these XX feelings do not necessarily have to exist at the same time).

For example, the socks are designed to stand out, and the top design is a zigzag shape (fashion sense).

For example, this pair of socks is the same style as a certain celebrity (fashion sense); for another example, this pair of socks is a limited edition designed by a big-name designer for the XX anniversary, and is limited to 500 pairs worldwide (scarcity sense).

There are many methods, and here are just a few to help you expand your thinking.

At this point, I believe many people may want to argue, your methods are too imaginative, and the number that can be sold is limited. What I want is whether there is any plan to sell this pair of socks on a large scale?

So I thought again, since it is based on the need to show off, can such a product positioning be given when promoting it to the outside world? For example: Hermes in the socks industry; retro socks worn by the royal family in medieval Europe, etc.

With such a pair of benchmarks, everyone will have a perception of this socks. Socks worn by rich people, whoever buys them will "look" rich.

2) Functional needs

Next, let's talk about functional needs.

We also mentioned above that the people who have the strongest functional needs for socks should be "sports enthusiasts", and it is relatively simple to sell to them, as long as you create the ultimate function of socks.

For example, you can say that this pair of socks will not get smelly even if you wear them for 3 days of exercise;

Another example is that this pair of socks is super quick-drying. It will dry in 1 minute after you take off your shoes, so you don’t have to worry about the discomfort of wet socks.

Another example is the ultimate trick. This pair of socks is equivalent to sports shoes. You don’t need to wear shoes when you exercise with them. It is comfortable and will not slip (with anti-slip design on the bottom).

Don’t be afraid of deadlifts and squats. You don’t have to worry about wearing shoes affecting your performance on leg training day (because the height of the sole will affect the center of gravity, what shoes you wear will indeed affect the training effect).

In addition to the above functionality, it can also reflect the sense of technology.

For example: this pair of socks is made of special materials and automatically heats up when you put them on. Wearing this pair of Socks In Winter is equivalent to installing a heater on your feet, which is more effective than 10 hot packs;

Of course, after all, they have not experienced it, and they are unwilling to believe it no matter how good you brag. We are not afraid that users will not buy it, but we are afraid that they dare not buy it.

So in addition to publicity, we can also do something practical to make them dare to buy and fall in love with this pair of socks.

We can do evaluation activities, select some sports enthusiasts to experience the product for free, and let them write in-depth evaluation experience reports. As long as the product is really good, these reports are the best promotional materials.

If you want to promote on a larger scale, you can do a redemption activity. If you buy 300 yuan in the whole store, you can add 1 yuan to exchange for this pair of socks worth 150 yuan. After experiencing it, you may fall in love with it.

Another example is to shoot a promotional video and experiment with all the things we said above.

3) Demand for charity

There is another group of people who are reluctant to buy such expensive socks, because socks are practical products for them and are not worth the price.

So in order to make them pay, we can use a method: psychological account transfer.

What is a psychological account? For example:

When I was at Disney, I met a balloon seller. The seller told me that it was 30 yuan each. I took a breath when I heard it. This is too expensive, just a balloon.

But the seller told me that you can give this balloon to your partner, or you can use it as a toy for your child. The price is not expensive. Where can you find such a cheap gift?

In this example, there are two psychological accounts. One is the psychological account of buying toys for myself. I may not be willing to spend a lot of money on this. The other is the psychological account of buying gifts for children and partners. I am willing to spend more money.

The merchant also cleverly transferred the psychological account, allowing me to transfer the psychological account of "from unwilling to spend money" to the psychological account of "willing to consume", which changed my perception of the product.

Similarly, the following plan based on the need for charity is also based on this strategy.

A person who buys himself a pair of so expensive socks would certainly be reluctant to do so. Then we can say this through mental account transfer:

"We have a donation plan. If you buy a pair of socks, we will donate a piece of clothing worth 200 yuan to children in mountainous areas in your name. Buying socks means you are showing love, etc."

PS: Price is not equal to value, so a 200 yuan piece of clothing may only be worth a few dozen yuan, so don't worry about losing a lot of money.

Through the transfer of mental accounts, we can transfer the purchase of socks from the account of buying luxury goods for ourselves to the mental account of showing love, which may make us more willing to spend money.

4) Environmental protection needs

Environmental protection needs can be divided into many sub-demands, such as environmentally friendly materials and pure natural materials.

Based on such needs, we can say to the outside world: the socks are made of top-grade materials (you still need to explore what they are specifically), and they are pure natural, and the socks are degradable and will not pollute the environment.

Of course, the above needs seem a bit weak. People are not very willing to do this kind of altruistic behavior that takes a long time to take effect (the degradability of socks is an effect that can only be reflected after a long time).

So let's think again, is there any strong demand that can stimulate them to buy?

It is also a strategy of mental account transfer. For example, we say:

"We will allocate a part of the fund for buying socks to protect endangered animals. Buying socks can actually protect some endangered species."

Buying socks seems to have become a sacred thing all of a sudden.

04 Summary
Today's article can be said to be a thought triggered by a pair of socks. The ultimate purpose of this article is not to "teach" everyone how to sell this pair of socks at a price of 150 yuan, but to discuss with everyone how important thinking is when doing something.

When faced with the problem of "selling a pair of socks for 150 yuan", at first we may all feel that this matter is too difficult to cognize, and even give up taking practical action because we realize that it is difficult to solve.

But from today's case, we can see that process-based thinking can help us dismantle the difficult goals in front of us.

We first find people who are willing to buy this pair of socks, and then analyze the reasons why they are willing to buy this pair of socks. Finally, we can find a reason that hits the nail on the head based on the needs of the target users and sell the socks to the users.

To be honest, how to sell this pair of socks at a price of 150 yuan is still a problem that is not easy to solve, but through process thinking, we found the core point in the process of "selling socks" that can solve the problem, and things became much simpler than at the beginning.