When times get tough, business owners have a myriad of options when it comes to figuring out how to boost sales. It's just that no one knows what the right one is. Despite that, the New York Times claims they do! They make an interesting (and aggressive) assertion in an article about Apple today: for premium brands, cutting prices on goods isn't the solution:

"A recession represents a major peril for a premium brand. There's a temptation to cut prices to maintain sales. But sometimes it's better to let sales fall than to cheapen your image so much that the halo is lost when the market rebounds."

While they make a good argument, are they right? Interestingly, they ignore that Apple's dropped prices consistently on products (although not necessarily in response to slowing sales), most recently with its newest iteration of the iPhone, which they released for a severely slashed price of only $199 last summer. We'd argue that that not only did that move not cheapen the brand, but it also had the effect of seriously boosting sales.

So for this week's survey question, we'd like to know what you think. As a small business owner or just Joe observer, do you think it makes sense to drop prices on premium products when the market tanks and times are rough? And as a consumer, do you think lowering the price on such goods would lead you to question their quality, and ultimately cheapen the image of the company selling them? Or does it, as the Times suggest, make more sense to weather the storm (if you can) and keep prices high? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.