Cherry picking?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Cherry picking?

1. The idea of cherry-picking applies in a number of business contexts. It refers, for example, to customers who ignore products that are bundled together by a manufacturer (who in the process may disguise cross-subsidies between high-margin and low-margin components of the bundle). Such customers prefer to bundle their products together for themselves, selecting the best value (that is, cherry-picking) from each category of component.

An obvious example is the purchase of music systems. Manufacturers sell music sets, made up of an amplifier, a tuner, an iPod docking station, a CD player and speakers. But many music enthusiasts choose to assemble their own sets, buying their amplifier, CD player, speakers and so on, each from a different producer. Manufacturers try to discourage this by making the price of the complete set competitive. But earnest cherry-pickers can usually find discounted components that enable them to assemble something cheaper.

The term cherry-picking is also applied to the behaviour of new entrants into old industries, firms which try to choose their customers carefully. By calculating which consumers are profitable (and appealing to them while ignoring those who are not) such a firm can sometimes rapidly gain market share. In some cases, cherry-pickers are successful only because traditional firms in the industry do not actually know who their profitable customers are.

Service industries are particularly vulnerable. It is more difficult for them to measure the profitability of individual customers and customer segments. So they are never quite sure which they want to keep and which they want to get rid of. Successful cherry-pickers leave an industry’s incumbents with the least profitable customers. They also push up the price to those consumers who are not attractive to them. In car insurance, for example, cherry-picking in the UK pushed up the price prohibitively for young male drivers, the highest-risk group.