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Razor And Blade 39#
The basic product is cheap or given away for free. The consumables that are needed to use or operate it, on the other hand, are expensive and sold at high margins. The initial product's price lowers customers’ barriers to purchase, while the subsequent recurring sales cross-finance it. Usually, these products are technologically bound to each other to further enhance this effect.
Examples: Iconic Cases
How they do it: The Sega Dreamcast was launched in 1999 for the price of $199, and video games for the Dreamcast were sold for $50-$70. With any customer owning on average multiple games, this resulted in recurring add-on revenues for Sega. These recurring sales of video games were cross-financing the cost of the hardware.
Learn more about Sega →
How they do it: Gillette is the name giver of the razor and blade business model. Selling its razors at a loss / at cost, it creates a lock-in effect and can make a profit with consumables compatible with the razor, which has a significantly higher profit margin.
Learn more about Gillette →
How they do it: Nespresso coffee system is protected by more than 100 patents. This allowed the company to keep competitors from selling coffee capsules compatible with the Nespresso system similar to printer companies. The coffee machines usually come at a low price with a large amount of test capsules from Nespresso. Over the lifetime of the device the customer usually spends much more on the high-margin coffee capsules.
Learn more about Nestlé Nespresso →
How they do it: Although the iPod is not given away for free, Apple uses it as a platform to access to much more revenue opportunities through apps and other services beyond the pure hardware revenue.
Learn more about Apple iPod/iTunes →
How they do it: The Amazon Kindle e-reader sold through Amazon.com is very competitively priced. Through the offer of e-books and other media formats to be used on the Kindle device, the revenue potential from these is far bigger than the price for the physical device.
Learn more about Amazon Kindle →
Below, the top industries for the pattern "Razor And Blade" are displayed, in order to get insights into how this pattern is applied across different industries. We've collected data from 9 firms using this pattern.
Top Industries
Hardware
33% of firms using pattern
33% of firms using pattern
Information Technology
12% of firms using pattern
12% of firms using pattern
Consumer Goods
10% of firms using pattern
10% of firms using pattern
All Industries
Below, the pattern "Razor And Blade" is analyzed based on co-occurrence, in order to get insights into how this business model pattern is applied in combination with other patterns within the firms we studied.
Top Co-Occurrences
Leverage Customer Data
3 pattern co-occurrences
3 pattern co-occurrences
Revenue Sharing
3 pattern co-occurrences
3 pattern co-occurrences
Two-sided Market
3 pattern co-occurrences
3 pattern co-occurrences