To deliver great value at affordable prices at Oceanus Systems, we ensure to go above and beyond for you, the valued customer! After looking into a lot of different concepts and competitors, we believe the Trident is the best priced item in the market. We aim to undercut competitors while giving the same value that other products can offer. Let’s break down our price point of $60 as well as products offered in our universe.
After initial research we have realized that with this type of device, the more features and complexity that is added to the product, the more expensive it gets. This made a lot of sense to us and played a crucial role in determining how we want to position and price our product. Through researching our competitors and their varying products, we decided that we want our product to fill gaps in demand that other competitors cannot offer to close. We believe to do that we must focus on keeping costs low to the consumer while giving them an immense amount of usable information.
To quickly analyze our prime competitors and their products we will inform you on available products, their features, and price points. The first type of product we noticed in our market is basic filtration. The biggest competitor in this space is Brita. Their product is the Brita® Chrome on Tap Faucet Water Filtration System which filters out odors and impurities for healthier, great-tasting water in a sleek chrome finish. This basic faucet mount removes 99% of lead and reduces chlorine (taste and odor) and asbestos contaminants commonly found in tap water. It features an extra layer to trap sediments and smaller contaminates. We recognize Brita as the main player with a low price point of $24.49 and extremely high brand recognition. We intend to stay away from this market.
The second type of product we noticed in our market was monitors to manage water use and detect errors in piping systems. One of the bigger competitors in this space is Flume. Their product detects leaks and monitors and manages water use. This product was on the most expensive end, with a price point of $249. We decided that our company does not want to pursue this type of product as the price points are very high and we assume demand for this product to be low.
The third type of product we noticed in our market was water quality monitors. This is the segment we believe we can compete in and steal market share by adding demanded elements for the consumer. During our research we noticed there were a few competitors with different values in their products. We began by looking at the highest price point and worked our way down. The competitor Hy-Lyte produces a water quality indicator light which is an advanced indicator of pure water for deionization, reverse osmosis, or distillation systems. Their product was relatively complex, and their price point was also high at $217. Another competitor was DANOPLUS, they produce smart water quality testers. This device (like ours) tests the 6 important measures of water quality: pH, Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Electrical Conductivity (EC), Salinity, Specific Gravity (SG) and Temperature. It’s equipped with mobile online app monitoring; this provides the user with a smart and easy way to view real time data. Using any smartphone (Android or iOS), users can backtrack the data curve of each parameter up to the past 30 days. Perfect tool for trend comparison and analysis. We will get to it more in the unique selling proposition, but we believe this to be our main competitor as we want to harness technology to pack more of a punch with our product. DANOPLUS had a moderate price point of $70. The lowest cost competitor was TDS and their digital water tester. With the push of a button, the TDS water tester can tell you your overall water purity level, which will be displayed on the screen in ppm (parts per million). They offer an impressive price point of $13.98 at what seems to be the sacrifice of additional features.
We strive to undercut competitor prices at first, and we plan to do that by looking at DANOPLUS’ price and dropping it by 10-15%. This puts our product at around $60, and we intend to split our pricing between the physical product and the subscription services for our app. To drive initial demand, we want to offer deals and ways for consumers to try our product so allow us to explain. Let’s say the physical product is $45, and the subscription services are $15/month with 3 months free. This allows consumers to pay as they go. We want to be known for a quality, low price product and scale our prices upward as demand rises. Our position intends to be slightly above average product quality with average to slightly below average prices.