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A price war, as this pack uses the term, is a cut a rival has already made against a line you sell. You did not choose the timing, the size, or the line; what you choose is the answer, and there are only two. Matching costs the cut on every unit you already sell, including the units the rival cannot reach and the customers who would have stayed. Holding costs the volume that leaves, at what each unit earned above the cost that leaves with it. The two bills are in different currencies, nothing in the room converts one into the other, and the argument settles on whoever is most frightened. This pack turns it into one division: the share of your volume you can lose before holding costs more than matching, read against how much of your volume the rival can actually reach. It puts a third answer on the table that most rooms never price — a guarantee the customer invokes, which puts the lower price on a fraction of the volume — and it prices the war in each side's own revenue, because the side for whom the cut is cheap decides how long it lasts. It stops on eight conditions, two of them facts about the other side that no one in your company has: how much of your volume the rival can serve, and what the line is to the rival.
What is the Price War Strategy Pack
The Price War Strategy Pack is a complete decision-support kit for one question: somebody cut price to take share, and what does matching cost, and what does holding? It is built around one organizing claim: matching is paid on every unit you already sell and holding only on the units that leave, so the decision turns on how much volume you can lose before the answer changes and how much of your volume the rival can actually reach. Sixteen files carry it: the foundations, a concept deck, a scored decision wizard, the War Model blank and worked, the moves at each reading, nine sourced price wars, a fit worksheet, a roadmap template, a practitioner manual, a field checklist, and an orientation page.
The test that runs through every file
Matching is paid on every unit you already sell and holding only on the units that leave, so the question is how much volume you can lose before the answer changes and how much of it the rival can reach. It is the argument in the deck, it becomes the wizard’s axes, it drives the model’s inputs, and it reappears as lines on the checklist. That is what makes 16 files a product rather than 16 documents.
The model resolves to one number you can negotiate with: The break-even defection — the share of volume you can lose before holding costs more than matching. It ships blank and worked, and every input is a named cell rather than a figure buried inside a formula, so the number arrives with its assumptions attached rather than on its own authority.
Why a price war strategy needs the bill no one prices
Not because anybody is hiding it. Because it needs two numbers about the other side, and neither is in your records. How much of your volume the rival can actually serve at the new price is a fact about their branches, their capacity, and their terms — so the room prices the war at everyone leaving, and against everyone leaving matching always looks cheap.
What the cut costs the one who made it is a reading of the rival's income statement, and the room reads its own. Schwab's 2019 cut cost Schwab about 3 to 4 percent of revenue and TD Ameritrade 15 to 16, and the war lasted 54 days. The side for whom a cut is cheap decides how long it lasts, and no one in most rooms has asked which side that is.
This pack turns that into arithmetic. What matching costs is the cut on every unit in the line. What holding costs is the volume that leaves, at what each unit earned above the cost that leaves with it. Then the whole decision reduces to one division, the share of your volume you can lose before holding costs more than matching, read against how much of it the rival can reach at all. And it puts a third answer on the table that most rooms never price: a guarantee the customer invokes, which puts the lower price on a fraction of the volume.
What is in the Price War Strategy Pack
- Foundations. The framework: why the two answers are priced in different currencies, the arithmetic, the third answer, the endings that actually happen, and the eight halts.
- Concept deck. Twenty-two slides for a board or a pricing review, with nine sourced price wars and what each does not establish.
- Decision wizard. Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions.
- War model. Eleven shares of the reachable volume across the columns, from no one leaving to everyone who can, and the break-even defection that decides it.
- Strategies and tactics. The moves at each of the four readings, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next cut cheaper to judge.
- Case studies. Nine sourced price wars — two reversed, two held in part, four held, and one with no outcome yet — with the winner and the loser on the same axis.
- Fit worksheet. The single page of record: the line, the cut, what a unit earns, how much of your volume they can reach, what would leave, and what the cut costs them.
- Roadmap template. Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line.
- Practitioner manual. Reading the cut, the contribution on the line, counting the rival's reach, reading the rival's side, the board paper, six failure modes.
- Field checklist. The one-pager that survives outside the binder.
- About the package. What each file does and the order in which to run them.
Who the Price War Strategy Pack is for
A chief executive whose sales floor is already matching a cut no one has priced; a chief financial officer being asked to approve a permanent transfer of margin against a loss no one has bounded; a commercial or pricing director who knows the rival's reach has never been counted; a head of sales carrying a fear that has not yet been converted into a number; a board member reading the cost of matching with no alternative beside it; a private equity operating partner underwriting a business whose margin sits in one contested line; and the adviser who would otherwise start from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real cut is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
An honest note on fit
This is a kit for running a decision, not a research report and not a forecast. Worked examples use an explicitly fictional company with numbers tuned to teach rather than to flatter. In the worked case a national rival has cut 12 percent into a $180m line at 34 percent contribution, and the room arrived to approve matching everywhere at $21.6m a year. Holding costs $13.0m; the break-even defection is 30 percent of the line and the rival can reach 45 percent, so it would have to take two thirds of everything it can reach; and a guarantee invoked with the quote in hand costs $7.6m. The sting is that the 45 percent is a guess from a branch map, and at 75 percent reach holding and matching cost the same.
Framework content is the larger share of the pack, and each page marks which is which. Six of the nine cases are read from the side that cut rather than the side that answered, for what the cut cost the cutter, and the page says so. Four limits are stated rather than worked around. The model takes a matched price to keep the customer, which is a simplification. It does not forecast the share that leaves — that figure is your own evidence, and the Model tab sweeps it precisely because no one can settle it in advance. It holds the rival's cut at the years you enter, read off the rival's exposure. And it prices this war, not the next one: what a public match teaches the rival is a judgment rather than a number.
Questions about the Price War Strategy Pack
- What does the War Model actually compute?
- Fourteen rows from twelve inputs. What matching costs a year on every unit and on the share that asks, the exposed volume in revenue, the volume you expect to lose, what holding costs a year, the break-even defection and its selective twin, whether holding still beats matching, the cheapest of the three answers, what the cut costs the rival in its own revenue against what holding or matching costs you in yours, the cheapest answer over the term in years of profit, and the line against revenue. The Model tab sweeps the share of the reachable volume that leaves from zero to everyone, and one row turns from Yes to No where holding stops being cheaper.
- A competitor cut prices. Should we match or hold?
- Price both bills first, because they are in different currencies. In the worked case a 12 percent cut on a $180m line costs $21.6m a year to match everywhere; holding costs $13.0m on an 18 percent loss of volume; and a guarantee invoked with the rival's quote in hand costs $7.6m. The room arrived to approve the most expensive of the three.
- We do not know how much of our volume the rival can reach.
- No one does, because it is a fact about the other side. It is the first halt: their branches, their capacity, the terms attached to the price, and who they are calling on, counted by account. A week with sales operations, and until it exists the room is pricing the war at everyone leaving.
- How is matching where it is asked different from cutting the list price?
- A guarantee the customer has to invoke puts the lower price on the share of volume that brings the rival's price in; a lower list price puts it on every unit, including the ones the rival cannot reach. Best Buy made a guarantee permanent in March 2013 against nineteen named competitors. It is frequently the cheapest of the three answers, and it has to be designed before it is announced.
- Does this only apply to distribution and retail?
- No. It applies wherever a rival has put a lower price against a line you sell: brokerage commissions, vehicles, wireless plans, marketplace listings, snacks, and rentals are all in the nine cases. The two halts, the rival's reach and the rival's exposure, exist in every one of them.
- Are the case studies real companies?
- Yes. Nine sourced price wars: Best Buy, Blockbuster, NIO, Tesla, BYD, Charles Schwab, PepsiCo, eBay in China read through Alibaba, and T-Mobile. Each is dated, read through what was faced and what was done, and each states what its evidence does not establish. Best Buy, Tesla, and Schwab are each two sourced records of one story, counted once. The worked model, wizard, and worksheet use an explicitly fictional company, labeled as such on every file.
- What is the Price War Strategy Pack?
- The Price War Strategy Pack is a decision-support kit for one question: Somebody cut price to take share — what does matching cost, and what does holding? It contains 16 files — foundations, concept deck, decision wizard, war model, strategies and tactics, case studies, fit worksheet, roadmap template, practitioner manual, field checklist, about the package — built around a single organizing test: matching is paid on every unit you already sell and holding only on the units that leave, so the question is how much volume you can lose before the answer changes and how much of it the rival can reach. It is what a leadership team uses to run the decision and leave a record of what they assumed, rather than a report about the topic.
- Who is the Price War Strategy Pack for?
- Anyone who has to make this call and answer for it: an operator or owner facing the decision, the executive team running it, the board or investor testing the reasoning, or an adviser who would otherwise build the framework from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
- What is in the Price War Strategy Pack?
- 16 files in Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel: Foundations (Word + PDF) — The framework: why the two answers are priced in different currencies, the arithmetic, the third answer, the endings that actually happen, and the eight halts. Concept deck (PowerPoint + PDF) — Twenty-two slides for a board or a pricing review, with nine sourced price wars and what each does not establish. Decision wizard (Excel) — Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions. War model (Excel, blank and worked) — Eleven shares of the reachable volume across the columns, from no one leaving to everyone who can, and the break-even defection that decides it. Strategies and tactics (Word) — The moves at each of the four readings, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next cut cheaper to judge. Case studies (Word) — Nine sourced price wars — two reversed, two held in part, four held, and one with no outcome yet — with the winner and the loser on the same axis. Fit worksheet (Word, blank and worked) — The single page of record: the line, the cut, what a unit earns, how much of your volume they can reach, what would leave, and what the cut costs them. Roadmap template (Word) — Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line. Practitioner manual (Word + PDF) — Reading the cut, the contribution on the line, counting the rival's reach, reading the rival's side, the board paper, six failure modes. Field checklist (PDF) — The one-pager that survives outside the binder. About the package (PDF) — What each file does and the order in which to run them.
- What number does the Price War Strategy Pack produce?
- The break-even defection — the share of volume you can lose before holding costs more than matching. The model ships blank and worked, and every input is a named cell rather than a figure buried inside a formula, so the number you take into a room arrives with its assumptions attached and can be argued with rather than merely believed.
- How is the Price War Strategy Pack delivered?
- As a single download of all 16 files, immediately after payment, with the same link sent by email. It can be downloaded 3 times and the link is valid for 30 days. There is nothing to install and no account to keep.