4 reasons you shouldn’t display your prices on your website

Do you have your prices listed on your website?

The issue of whether to display your prices on your website is a bit marmite.  It tends to divide the world into those who believe it is a necessity and those who think it is the worst thing you can do.

There are many reasons we hear why you wouldn’t.  Here are the top 4

1.  I don’t want my competitors to know my pricing

Do you know what your competitors charge?  If you don’t, you should.

How?  Well, the easiest way is to ask someone who has used or uses them.  Or ask a friend to call them to find out.

If you don’t, how do you know what the “market” price is for those services. You must have done some research to come up with your prices???

Why is this relevant?  Well, chances are your competitors know your prices already (and if they don’t they could easily find out even if you don’t put your prices on your website).  And if they don’t, well what are you frightened of?  A price war?  You need to demonstrate why you are worth your prices – whatever your competitors charge.

2.  It might put customers off.

The reality is that 78% of people who want to buy from you won’t contact you to find out your price if it isn’t displayed (*completely made up statistic – I have no idea how many people won’t bother to contact you, except it will be greater than 0%….).  I often surf the internet in the evenings.  If I am searching for a particular service offered by a few local businesses, I can rarely be bothered to spend the time emailing my requirements and I certainly don’t want to spend time listening to their sales spiel when all I want to know is whether they are in the price range I have budgeted (I will never recover the 2 hours of my life spent with the wardrobe sales person who, after meticulously going through my requirements and giving me the speech about the quality of their goods, told me it would be circa £8,000 – when my budget was more like £1,000…)

Your website is the place to hook people in.  Good content will convince people they want to purchase your services (or not).  There really is a way to write your content so that your website “sells” your product or services to those potential clients who are right for you.  They may need to speak to you (or meet you) but they (and you) know you are on a similar page so you don’t waste your time, or theirs.

Listing your prices will stop you from wasting your time with people who don’t have the budget for your services…

3.  My prices are complicated

They often are.  We have struggled a bit with displaying prices for our services because each customer has a slightly different requirement.  But actually streamlining what you offer has many benefits, one of which is being clear on price.  Ever been to one of those restaurants where the menu runs to pages and pages?  Personally I like to go somewhere where the menu is long enough that I can find something I want to eat, but not too much that I spend half the evening making a decision, and the other half wondering whether I have made the right one…

Too much choice is not necessarily a good thing.  You can always make it clear to customers that you can make changes, or have more.  80% of your customers will want something relatively “standard”.

Otherwise you can put a range, price for a particular specification (you can state prices “from” – although most potential customers will assume the actual price for them will be considerably higher) or an indicative price.  Think about the best way to demonstrate the kind of price they will end up paying.

4.  I charge different people different rates

Really?  Why? 

Well, it depends on their budget/whether they are a friend/what the colour of their hair is/what day of the week it is…

Stop!  This is not good business practice.  Work out the value of your services and that is your price – for everyone.  Yes, you may occasionally run promotions (but these shouldn’t be normal practice), or discount bundled services or even give a cheaper deal to your brother, cousin, friend.  But, by setting out your prices it stops you from making them up as you go along, and if you do provide a “deal” it is clear to the recipient that they are getting something better than you normally charge…

We display our prices on our website (see our services page).  Why?  Well, we don’t want to waste your time or ours.  We think our website sets out very clearly what we do, the value we give and therefore why we are worth those prices. 

The reality is this your website should be your hardest working sales person.  It should not only set out your prices, but also why you are worth those prices – the value you give.  Yes, some people may decide you are too expensive but it is better to know that before you spend your valuable time with them.