Some time ago, I read an opinion piece defending the price of a premium offering in Kigali. It stayed with me, not because I agreed or disagreed with the argument, but because it raised a much bigger question about how businesses and customers understand price and value. Today, that question feels even more relevant. Prices are rising across almost every aspect of our lives. Food, transport, housing, energy, hospitality and other services are becoming more expensive. According to the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), Rwanda’s Consumer Price Index, the country’s main measure of inflation, increased by 15.7 per cent year-on-year in August 2026, up from 14.5 per cent in July. During the same period, transport prices increased by 24.2 per cent; housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels by 20.4 per cent; food and non-alcoholic beverages by 16.3 per cent; and restaurants and hotels by 15.6 per cent. NISR also reported that energy prices increased by 45.4 per cent year-on-year. So, yes, inflation is real. Businesses are under pressure. Their costs are increasing, and many have little choice but to review their prices. But here is the uncomfortable question: When your price goes up, does your customer's perception of your value go up with it? As a brand and growth strategist, I often look at businesses through two lenses: what the business needs to achieve commercially and what the customer needs to believe before making, repeating or recommending a purchase. These two perspectives are not always the same. A business owner sees rising rent, salaries, utilities, imported inputs, transport, financing costs and other operating expenses. The customer sees the final price. The business may say, quite reasonably, My costs have gone up. The customer asks, equally reasonably, What am I getting for the additional money? Neither question is wrong. But they are different questions. Inflation can explain why a business needs to increase its prices. It does not automatically give customers a reason to pay more. Cost explains price, but value earns willingness to pay. This is where I think many businesses need to rethink the idea of premium positioning. A premium price does not, by itself, make a premium brand. A business can have a beautiful location, sophisticated branding, expensive packaging and a high price tag. But if the service is inconsistent, the product experience is ordinary, communication is poor or customers have to work too hard to get what they paid for, that premium positioning begins to unravel. The higher the price, the higher the expectation. Customers are not just buying a product. They are buying everything that comes with it: convenience, reliability, confidence, service, experience and the reassurance that their money was well spent. That is why being premium is not simply about what you charge. It is about what the customer consistently experiences. When customers are under greater financial pressure, every discretionary spending decision becomes more deliberate. People compare. They prioritise. They postpone purchases. They ask whether something is genuinely worth the money. And this is where brands are tested. When the price of a product or service increases, customers do not necessarily expect businesses to remain cheap. They expect them to remain worth it. That distinction is crucial. A strong brand is not necessarily the one with the lowest price. It is the one that gives customers a clear reason to choose it despite the price. At the same time, this conversation should not become an attack on businesses for increasing their prices. Businesses have to survive. They have employees to pay, obligations to suppliers and landlords, taxes and utilities to cover, logistics to manage and operations to maintain. They also need to invest in improving their businesses. A business cannot absorb every cost increase indefinitely, nor should it feel compelled to apologise every time it adjusts its prices. The real responsibility is different. If the price rises, the business must become more intentional about the value it delivers. That could mean better service, higher quality, greater convenience, faster response times, improved customer care, better product selection, more personalised experiences, stronger loyalty programmes or simply greater consistency. The answer will be different for every business, but there must be an answer. We often talk about growth as though the only route is acquiring more customers. I do not think that is enough anymore. In an environment where customers are becoming more selective, businesses should be asking themselves: How do we convert more of the people already interested in us? How do we encourage existing customers to buy more frequently? How do we increase the value of each customer? How do we reduce the reasons customers leave? How do we give customers a stronger reason to return? And how do we turn satisfied customers into advocates? These are growth questions. Growth is not simply about selling more at a higher price. It is about building a business that creates enough value for customers to choose it, return to it and recommend it to others. The conversation around rising prices often starts with the question, Why is this so expensive? That is understandable. But perhaps the more useful question for business leaders is, What are we doing that makes this worth paying for? There is another question I believe every CEO, entrepreneur and business leader should ask before increasing prices: If our customers had to justify this purchase to themselves today, what reason would we give them to choose us? If the answer is simply, Because our costs went up, we may have explained the price, but we have not necessarily strengthened our value proposition. This is not an argument against price increases. It is an argument for better businesses. Businesses that understand their customers. Businesses that know what they are truly selling. Businesses that continuously improve the experience surrounding their products and services. Businesses that recognise that loyalty is earned, not owed. Inflation may force businesses to raise prices, but it cannot force customers to see more value. That value has to be created. And in a market where everyone is facing rising costs, businesses that understand how to create, communicate and consistently deliver value may find that this becomes one of their most important competitive advantages. Price is what the customer pays. Value is what convinces them it was worth it. The writer is a brand and growth strategist.
