>Do people not take Walmart seriously?

Depends on what you mean by "people". For a lot of average consumers/customers, Walmart _isn't_ taken seriously. They're not aware (and don't care) about the incredible supply/logistics magic that Walmart orchestrates behind the scenes. They'll pay a premium to buy stuff elsewhere to avoid the inferior goods connotations associated with Walmart.

For electronics or clothes maybe, for many household things Walmart had name brands and people know that. I dont go there (and I assume pay a premium) because I dont like places that treat customers as cattle, and would happily pay a few cents extra for a shopping experience that hasn't had every ounce or humanity stripped from it. Granted I'm in the minority and it's hard to even find places that treat their customers like people anymore.

It's not about the goods mosly, but rather standing in long, slow, lines with the masses.

You're kind of both right IMO.

The great majority of products created by techies interested in startups are priced much lower than the market will bear, and so their prices should rise.

There definitely is a market out there for the cheapest possible version of something. Usually, turning a profit while moving a product at the cheapest possible price involves maximizing volume, cutting quality to be bare minimum, and ruthlessly eliminating overhead. Like, if there aren't thousands of people on the internet complaining about how crappy your quality is, you probably need to cut it further. I haven't studied it, but I have a hunch that most of the type of people who surf HN for business advice aren't interested in being in a commodity industry where you have to do these things to have a viable business. Or if they find themselves in one, they aren't going to be ruthless enough in the right directions to make it. They better find the right place to get advice for that sort of business, or they won't last long.

> Do people not take Walmart seriously?

I tend to think that they mostly sell cheap crap, that even their brand-name stuff has been renegotiated with the manufacturer so they can sell you a lower quality version in order to have the lowest price. They have definitely done this with some products, and at least attempted it on others.

So yeah, their pricing definitely affects my perception of their products. I avoid Walmart.

Office 365 has the clout of Microsoft behind it. I don't know that the general rule applies as well as it does to some new SaaS company I have never heard of before.

If you have money and you want to pay more for the same thing you are more then welcome to shop around. But just because what ever premium brand name store you use is "better" because it costs more, doesn't mean it isn't the same thing as Walmart.

Pricing is not as simple as "charge more" because it increases the premium factor by applying a this costs to much for me so it must be good factor.

There are hundreds of other factors you need to consider and I don't think applying a double my price equals success to your pricing schema always makes sense.

> pay more for the same thing

I think you missed the point. Walmart absolutely has negotiated deals in the past for products that appear to be the same but are not. Levi's jeans is one example. They tried to do the same thing with Snapper, as I recall, but were rebuffed.

If that's okay with you, great, you are matching the price of the product with the quality. But as a result of them doing it and not being completely transparent about it, I question what other products they've done the same thing with.

You may avoid it, but hundreds of millions don't, so the point stands. "Cheap crap" is obviously one possible way to go, and companies like Walmart have grown very successful that way.

Many people are totally fine with buying cheap crap. As long as they know that going in, that's great. Walmart is indicating with their prices that they're offering lower quality merchandise, which many people find acceptable because the cost is lower. It's honest.

I think a lot of people overvalue what they think they need--basically YAGNI. There is a bit of once burnt, twice shy. I learned when first moving out to go to the dollar store to fill my apartment; bathroom trash can, shower curtain rings, kitchen cups/plates, toilet brush. Then upgrade what doesn't work (paper-thin shower curtains will billow with the steam and stick to you). It wasn't as wasteful as I had expected and I saved a lot of money compared to just buying everything from the average retail store.

Even Wal-Mart plays on this by stocking name brands here and there.

are there hundreds of millions of enterprise customers for your SAAS product?

Sometimes shooting for enterprise customers doesn't work. Some products need the little guy to survive, not global international enterprise companies.