A couple of weeks ago now it was announced that Avant were looking to make their products more accessible by reducing the purchase cost and altogether removing their premium product.

Avant’s products, which previously cost between $1595 to over sixteen thousand dollars were slashed in price by up to $5,000.

But why the adjustment and on a larger note, why such a dramatic price adjustment?

Avant’s premium conference, Transcend, which was a five day conference retailing for $16,495 has been completely removed from the Avant product line.

With Avant still being in their first year of business and a Transcend conference yet to take place, presumably it was dropped due to poor ticket sales and fears of low attendance numbers.

Replacing Transcend is a new one day conference ‘Empower’ (a name awfully similar to Wealth Masters International’s ‘MPower’ product). Avant’s Empower conference comes in at a retail cost of $2295, much more attractive than Transcend’s previous $16,495 price point.

The remaining Avant products, Elevate and Transform have also received price adjustments.

Elevate, a 72 day home based course, has dropped from $1595 to a retail of $495. While Transform, a 3 day conference, has been slashed to almost half the original price of $9495 to just $5495.

Along with the price reductions also comes a hit in associate commissions and no doubt this will put added stress on Avant associates to sell the same products for roughly half the commissions.

This assumes of course that Avant has proportionally reduced the company’s share of the retail product price in line with the associate’s commission. Previously this was roughly a 33/66 split for Elevate and Transcend and just under 50/50 for Transform.

Regardless of what the new commission splits are though, one thing is clear: Avant’s products don’t have any real quantifiable monetary value. And this I believe is reflective of the personal development niche in the MLM industry at large.

Sure there are research and development costs but beyond publishing expenses, factoring in an actual retail price seems to be a pie in the sky affair. And if Avant’s recent price adjustments are anything to go by, wildly flexible.

How many other products could company’s take a 50% hit in retail and still remain viable?

Whilst the price reductions will no doubt make Avant’s product line more accessible (as is the company’s stated public intention), one can’t help but ask if it was viable from the company’s launch, then why didn’t Avant launch with lower product prices.

Well, I can think of one obvious reason… greed. Or to put that greed into context, the belief that the general public at large would be willing to pay whatever price Avant decided to set for its product line. Which, by the recent price reductions were originally clearly artificially inflated to be well above their market worth.

For such a drastic product price change and the removal of the premium 5 day conference, Transcend, to all take place in Avant’s first year of business (Transcend has been scrapped before a conference was even held), product sales must have been somewhat sluggish to say the least.

Try as much as you can to put a positive spin on it, it’s hard to ignore the reality of such large price reductions as anything but a realistic adjustment in product prices from previously grossly inflated price points.

When we’re talking products that cost thousands of dollars and half of the money you pay in retail goes straight to the company associate, one can only wonder if the perceived value actually lies in the product itself, or in the bank balance of the person you’re buying from.

If thousands of dollars can be instantly wiped from a product line with little to no impact on the product line or company itself, was there ever any measurable additional value to begin with?