Do you put pricing on your website?

30th July 2020 | Posted in Small business, Website

Yes, and no.

The answer’s never simple, is it?

Let’s say you’re not one of those ultra-sophisticated businesses that can personalise pricing according to the personal profile they’ve built about you from various sources. Not mentioning any names, but it has been suggested that travel companies and big consumer goods vendors might be quite handy at this.

If you’re a smaller company, and whatever you put on the site is the price at your point of sale, then the question is whether you want everyone – including your competitors – to know your prices? Or do you want people to make contact to find out more?

It very much depends on your business.

If you’re selling commodities – washing machines, apps or hand-crafted picture frames – then the price is likely to be the same for everyone. But for services and personalised products, there could be good reasons to want to find out more about what the customer wants before putting a price on it.

Reasons to be up front with your pricing:

• Some people may be put off initially if it’s a higher price than they have in mind. However, they could change their minds after looking around the market and mulling over the value of your services
• People who don’t feel your offer is good value won’t contact you, and you can avoid wasting time on communicating with what for you is the ‘wrong’ sort of audience
• It will help you to avoid spending your initial contact in haggling, which is time-consuming and distracting
• It’s part of an open and honest approach to clients which many will appreciate
• Even if you’re in a competitive situation, it wouldn’t be hard for your competitors to find out your prices, so in some ways by being open you’re gaining competitive advantage over those who aren’t

Reasons to be more circumspect with your pricing:

• Having a conversation with a prospective client could clarify whether there’s a difference in expectations between what you intend to deliver and what they think they will receive. You may need to set your pricing to meet their specific needs
• It will be harder to adjust your pricing (especially upwards) if you find you haven’t got it quite right for the time and money you’re spending on delivering your services
• If you’re selling personalised packages of services, then you want to tailor your pricing too.

It doesn’t have to be an absolute one way or the other.

You could put together specific, non-tailorable packages of services with a set price. Promote these as great value, but make sure you can cover your costs and make a reasonable profit on these.

At the same time, offer tailor-made ranges of services that are personalised to each customer, following a conversation in some form about what they are looking for.