Customers know a handful of your prices and almost none of the rest. Raise in reverse order of how well the price is known.
Most brands raise every price by the same percentage because it’s simple. It’s also the riskiest way: the rise lands hardest on the one price everyone remembers, and that price becomes the story.
Peter Dickson and Alan Sawyer observed and interviewed supermarket shoppers. More than half couldn’t correctly name the price of the item they had just put in the cart, and more than half of those who bought something on special didn’t know it was reduced Published. That was 1990 and groceries; a DTC customer who reorders every six weeks knows that price better. But price knowledge is concentrated on a few items bought often, advertised or bought first.
For a DTC brand, the known prices are usually these:
Everything else, from accessories and refills to larger sizes, sets, add-ons and new launches, is known loosely or not at all.
The price everyone knows is the price the rise will be judged by. Move it last and least.
| Move | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| First | New products, new sizes and new sets | No reference price exists. Launch them at the price you want. |
| First | Accessories, refills, add-ons and the long tail | Low price knowledge, often the highest break-even (chapter 3) |
| Second | Bundles and larger packs | Keep the per-unit price better than singles, so the value story survives |
| Second | The SKUs whose costs rose most | The fairest rise, with a reason you can name (chapter 5) |
| With notice | Subscription and replenishment prices | Known on every charge; protected by notice rules (chapter 8) |
| Last, or through a tier | The hero and the entry product | The prices customers remember, and the ones acquisition depends on |
The entry product’s price shapes who buys a first time. If you raise it, check first orders with The First Offer’s value math, or a proper test if you have the traffic (The Honest Test).
On July 29, 2025, Procter & Gamble said it would raise prices on about a quarter of its US products, by mid-single digits, starting in August. It put the cost of tariffs at about $1 billion before tax in its new fiscal year. Its finance chief described a consumer who was “more selective” and looking for value in larger packs at club, online and big-box retailers Reported.
ReportedReuters, via BNN Bloomberg, July 29, 2025.
Two things are worth copying. The rise was selective, a quarter of the range. And it was single digits, tied to a cost everyone had read about for months. A company with P&G’s pricing power still moved only a quarter of its prices.
This is one chapter of The Price Rise, which is free and readable in full on a single page with no form in front of it.