SCHMIDPREISSLERBRIEF©
SchmidPreisslerConsultants · Innovative Strategic Advice - Research - Analysis - Market Solutions · Established 1961
February 2026
Pricing
We are currently experiencing a change, or even a break, in the way people consume today and will consume in the future.
What has happened? The era of consumerism is over. Knowledge has transformed the consumer society into a knowledge society, with clear signs that it will continue to develop into a value-based society. As a result, people are reevaluating their needs and requirements, as well as their spending and investments – with the consequence that marketing managers in companies would do well to review their existing consumer goods marketing strategies.
In the future, price and, associated with this, value for money will play a decisive role in marketing. In other words, the price must be worth the money that people are willing to pay. Quality, expectations, benefits, and performance must justify or even exceed the asking price, and people must feel that they have made a sensible and worthwhile decision. This applies equally to premium and luxury products as it does to everyday items.
This is particularly evident in the development of the new brand strategy of supermarket and discount companies, which offer a comprehensible relationship between high quality and fairly calculated prices. The recent pricing policies of once-respected brand manufacturers have led to the German food retail sector already generating almost 50% of its sales with its own brands, which have classic brand characteristics and are replacing the former retail brands and labels.
In the future, price will be a decisive factor in building trust more than ever before. Permanently low prices and prices that are kept low through constant discount campaigns jeopardize the relationship of trust between customers and brands, especially between customers and classic brands. In Germany, for example, beer and wine consumption is suffering from the fact that both cultural beverages are offered at permanently low prices, damaging their image and downgrading them from class to mass products, plunging brewers and winemakers into a sales crisis that threatens their very existence.
People's knowledge and sense of values will shape their purchasing behavior in the future, which is why successful marketing in the future will be value-oriented marketing, in which price will play a decisive role.
We, the SchmidPreisslerBrief team, the author of this letter, Christina Schmid-Preissler, Dipl.-Volksw., Maximiliana Schürrle, Dipl.-Soz., Alexander Schürrle, and Franz M. Schmid-Preissler, send our warmest regards.
Your F. M. Schmid-Preissler
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SchmidPreissler International Strategy Consultants GmbH · Ismaninger Straße 140 · D-81675 München · Tel. +49 89 139 29579
Für den Inhalt verantwortlich (MStG): Franz M. Schmid-Preissler - Anschrift siehe oben