In marketing, we’ve been looking at different marketing strategies and marketing mix. Interestingly enough RIM has been offering a BlackBerry PlayBook Back to Business Offer; where a BlackBerry business customer in the US and Canada get a 2+1 deal – PLUS accessories!! Basically, business customers are able to buy 2 PlayBook’s and get the third one free of charge AND get 3 accessories (either leather sleeve, charging pad or a 6’ HDMI cable). Just a few weeks ago RIM had a 50% cut in the PlayBook prices, however, after the recent “glitches”, which include the service outage by RIM and the postponed PlayBook OS 2.0 update, this was RIM’s way of saying “I’m sorry”. This is (I believe) like product bundle pricing (combining several products and offering the bundle at a reduced price). These product mixes aid RIM maximize their profits for the particular product – PlayBook.
Nothing but software, Kduffy describes this as a “grocery store tactics”. Zdnet, describes this as “good deal or utter desperation” on RIM’s survival in the now booming tablet market. Zdnet also describes how desperate RIM may be in getting more market share after all the promotions and cuts in the recent weeks. However, with the OS 2.0 expecting to release in February of 2012 (which includes the native email, calendar and contacts app along with the ability to run Android apps), the buy 2 get 1 free along with the accessories that cost approximately $60 seems to be a very attractive deal for the business consumers. It is unknown how many sales BlackBerry has done after the recent promotions, but it is worth speculating and expecting something big from RIM in the days to come.
