Delusions of Grandeur

Give your product an Italian name, price it very high, then justify the cost on the basis of how hard it is to make. This is a great strategy if you want to leave yourself vulnerable to someone who actually knows how to create a quality product.

At a home show, a stylish, seamless acrylic bathtub is displayed with a suggested retail price of over $9,000. The tub is attractive, and the vendor explains that they have to charge that much because it's very complex to create. "It's a unique mould. You are probably going to scrap five (during manufacturing) to get one that's perfect."

So, to make one of these tubs, they essentially have to make six, inspect them, and discard five because of flaws. You're paying a high price for their tub, not because it's "high" quality, but because they have a lousy manufacturing process, and pass the extra costs on to you.

We often confuse these delusions of grandeur with a truly quality product. When someone defends the price of their product (or service) because it is hand-crafted, reworked, flawed and inspected, these are all rationalizations for why it is expensive when it really doesn't need to be.