On weekend mornings I walk the mile or so to the local grocery store to get my meal for the day. The exercise helps me maintain my slim girlish figure (provided the Pillsbury dough boy has a slim girlish figure) and limits how much I buy. When you have to physically carry your food home it tends to limit your impulse buys. While walking by the local gas station something occurred to me. When I started hanging out at the Dolphin gas was $1.45 a gallon, and my favorite drink (screwdriver) costs $3.50. Typical tip at the rail was $1 dollar and a couch dance cost $20. The price of gas is now $4.00, my favorite drink costs $7.50. A Typical tip at the rail is still a dollar and the price of a couch dance is still $20. In stark contrast to the rest of the economy tipping at strip club has become a progressively better and better deal. Unfortunately this savings comes at the expense of the dancer.
It occurred to me it would really difficult to raise prices. The biggest problem is that all the pricing continuity in a club comes from the management, not the dancers. Dancers tend to come and go. It's a job not a career for most. It's to the club advantage to keep the price the same. The less the customer spends on the dancer, the more he has for drinks, gambling, and food. There is really no incentive for them to increase the price, all it would probably do is drive customers to another club. One of the D2 managers had the bright idea of raising the price to $25. The dancer would still get $20, but the club would a get a $5 dollar "couch tax" per dance. This nearly resulted in a dancer revolt. Pretty much all the girls had worked out with their regulars where they would be working next. When faced with a club with zero top girls and less regulars. The manager abandoned the plan.
For me the price increase would result in my purchasing less dances. I would still spend the same amount of money. I would just get less for my dollars. I budget my money in how much I'm going to spend as opposed to how much I'm going to get. In order to implement a price increase would require all the dancers to raise there price at once. Trying to get every dancer to agree to do one thing is like trying to herd cats. I suspect most would be afraid they would lose their customers and charge the old price. Also the $20 dollar price has a major convenience factor; it's the denomination that ATMs issue.
One dancer did raise her price to $25. She did this on her own accord. She was very professional and honest about it. When I asked her for dances she told me she charged 25 and that was her price, not the clubs and if I didn't want any it was OK. I went ahead and bought some dances from her. The way she went about handling increased price was really impressive, it's very difficult thing to raise price. However, I didn't buy any more dances from her after that. She was ending her career as a dancer. She had just completed her school and was going to go out and get a "real job". I think she had several loyal regulars and was pretty much just dancing to cover some expenses, not really looking to make a living at it.
A tiered pricing scheme would be another approach. This is the VIP room concept, Instead of just one product you have a series of products each increasing cost. The trick is to create the perception that the more expensive services are worth more. The VIP room cost more, but it's worth more. I'm not sure the current VIP experience justifies its price. A half hour is $250. A song is typically five minutes when you factor in the time it takes to switch between dancers. In a half hour you can get six dances, or $120 dollar. I don't think the current VIP experience rates more than double the price. I'm curious how many customers repeat buying VIPs. I don't think the current VIP creates that feeling. They need to throw in some swag. Give away a free pass so they customer doesn't have to pay cover next time. Cheap give away items like the use at trade show is also good. Its amazing the effect of giving somebody a ball point pen can have. One year we gave away this really clever fold up pen at a trade show. For the next two years we had people coming up and asking for more.
It's a peculiar paradox that something that perceive as expensive, strip clubs, are becoming a progressively better deal. It's kind of weird, but a couch dance or stage tip is worth exactly what you pay for it. It's purely an entertainment service. If you can create the experience where the customer feels like he's getting his money worth, you can charge what ever you want.
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