Introduction

	Pricing is one of the product and marketing mix instruments.
	Pricing involves a complex decision.
	Price is that which is given up in an exchange to acquire goods or services.
	Pricing has great impact on the sales, revenue and indirectly affects storage costs.
	It carries different names such as rent for housing, fare for transportation, salary for labour, toll for using road, fee for some services, and premium for insurance etc.
	In short, price is the amount of money charged for a product or service, or the sum of values that consumers exchange for the benefits of having or using the product or service (Kotler and Armstrong, 2004).
	Price affects the customer’s decision significantly.
	Be it in restaurant, hotels, supermarket or banking.
	Other factors, of course are income and preferences etc.
	Noneconomic factors as well affect consumer’s decision in recent times, such as service satisfaction and after sales service.
	Prices naturally and historically are determined through negotiations between buyers and sellers.

Introduction

	However, with changes in time and development of retail business in the late 19th century, price policy that regulates, fix or set the price limits become a practical reality.
	This development on price fixation is now reversed through advancement in information and communication technology or information revolution.
	Buyers and sellers are now highly connected as ever before.
	From airlines to supermarkets, to education and healthcare an individual buyer can make a reasonable comparison of prices and product that he can never do in the last centuries.
	This gives him to save time and resources by making purchase easily and he may need not to go physically as delivery could be made to his house with little or no charges.
	Other elements in the marketing mix represent costs, except price which represents revenues.
	It is very flexible, depending on the market situation, unlike features of product that may take time to change.
	Pricing is found to be the most challenging element to the marketers.
	All this tell a marketer the importance of handling pricing well to avoid marketing failure.