Not Shooting Yourself in The Foot — Part 3
I wanted to wrap up this three part series on how to avoid being your own worst enemy with some real world examples about the all too common practice of "hiding" the price of things. I had a few favorite examples filed away … but then this morning a much better "near-real time" example came up.
This is an extract from an comment thread on a popular MMO (Make Money Online) blog from just a day ago:
… Unfortunately it is not that simple (it never is). (my emphasis) They will offer you a $299.00 lifetime price on the special offers page. I clicked on that, signed up with another email for a new account, confirmed my email, and now the offer has gone away. It seems they have a little loop going where you never get to a page where you can actually pay for the $299.00 price. The only pages I can get to are a $399.00 price and I think a $499.00 price. I submitted a ticket and asked them how to get the $299 price I was offered …
Now, what this product or service I was is not important. Any time you have a customer willing to pay $299 for something you have offered for $299, wouldn’t you make it simple to collect that money … and make the customer happy that she or he made a wise decision? Gosh, I would think so.
Notice the parenthetical comment in the first sentence … it never is. Sad. The Internet is a huge business enabler. It’s a huge business all on its own. Billions of dollars per year.
Yet how many of these transactions happen in spite of merchant’s pricing policies, rather than because of them?
You know, it’s pretty standard for us Americans to bitch about the shopping experience at large chain stores … let’s say, Wal*Mart (ever notice how their actual corporate name is Wal-Mart, but all their signs say Wal*Mart?). Wal*Mart is the store many love to hate. But if I go into a Wal*Mart and look at their selection if DVD players, as an example, I know several things:
- The price will be clearly marked (there are even price check scanners so I can double-check)
- There will be a number of different options, all also clearly marked … I can decide if I want a Sanyo or a Sony without having to leave the store and research prices elsewhere.
- If I buy a DVD player today and decide I don’t like it, I know how long I have to return it and get a refund or an exchange.
It’s simple, it’s clearly marked, it’s forthright and everything in the store (love it or hate it) is geared toward getting me to the checkout and making me a happy customer and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. a little richer.
No matter what you think about Wal*Mart, Walmart.com, Target, Best Buy, etc., take page from their book … post prices and make it easy for your customer to pay those prices.
It would seem like very simple and basic information to business people, but apparently, in the on-line world it almost is "rocket science".
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Agreed - I think transparency with prices is VERY important. People just DO NOT like to be messed around with when quoting prices, and they want to know exactly what the price will be, often before contacting you.
In my field (translation) it is usual for agencies NOT to publish their prices - it’s always “write for a quote”. I would really hate that as a customer. Yes, it can be difficult to provide an exact estimate when services are involved, but at least some rough indicators, instead of pulling the price out of a hat after the customer has contacted you.
What’s so scary about publishing prices? You don’t want the competition to know - why not, what does it matter? You want to charge customers on an individual basis depending on how much you think you can get away with - well don’t, give certain customers a discount instead if you must tailor prices per customer. You fear you will drive away customers because of the price - well, so what, they are probably not the right customers anyway if your price is a problem.
In short, I think price transparency is very important and shows long-term thinking, while manipulation as you seem to describe above is no long-term business strategy…