Pricing on your website (Part 3): Why you should

Posted on January 12, 2007 by Dave J.

Why should you try to publish pricing on your website? Do we really have to have this discussion? It is pretty obvious, isn’t it?

  • Price is one of the most important features of your product. Site visitors want to know!
  • Price is a reality check that what they are looking at is appropriate for what they need and can afford.
  • In the B2B world, pricing drives budgets ala the Dilbert cartoon I posted earlier this week. During the budget process, the prospect is really just a ‘suspect’, and knows it. He wants to avoid being treated like a prospect by an overeager salesperson.
  • Corollary: Your eager salespeople don’t waste their time with ‘suspects’.
  • Getting your price in the budget keeps you ‘top of mind’ when the budget is approved. It’s yours to lose now.
  • The visitor will be able to spend more time evaluating your products and drilling down to the one with the best value for their needs…instead of flipping back to Google.
  • If you don’t do it, someone else in your industry will.
  • Someone else already has pricing on their website and visitors are flocking to their products.

Published pricing is definitely going against established sales conventions, so perhaps there are other answers about ‘why you should’ based on improvement in your sales cycle. For example, publishing a ‘suggested retail price’ may solve a problem with distributors who excessively mark-up or discount your products.

Will any of these win over your management or sales force to agree to put pricing on your website? That is probably the greater question here. The need is obvious, but convincing others to do it takes a compelling argument. Any suggestions?

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  • Mike Gerholdt

    I believe that by placing pricing on a website it will save valuable sales time–allowing the inquiry to qualify themselves. A good rule of thumb to remember is that your customers will spend more time on your competitors site than yours unless you give them a reason to stay.

  • Mike Gerholdt

    I believe that by placing pricing on a website it will save valuable sales time–allowing the inquiry to qualify themselves. A good rule of thumb to remember is that your customers will spend more time on your competitors site than yours unless you give them a reason to stay.

  • Anonymous

    Dave, I hate to say this, but you are going to have to “paint a picture” (yes, put down on a few pieces of paper) of exactly how you think the pricing should be laid out and displayed on each web page. Even show where the links should be and why they are there.

    Then get all the buyer benefits to the sales dept. and management together you can come up with, and do a presentation to everyone. If you can come up with competitors or distributors (or any B2B companies) that are doing it already, you can show why you like or don’t like their pricing presentation and navigation on their websites.

    Good Luck

  • Anonymous

    Dave, I hate to say this, but you are going to have to “paint a picture” (yes, put down on a few pieces of paper) of exactly how you think the pricing should be laid out and displayed on each web page. Even show where the links should be and why they are there.Then get all the buyer benefits to the sales dept. and management together you can come up with, and do a presentation to everyone. If you can come up with competitors or distributors (or any B2B companies) that are doing it already, you can show why you like or don’t like their pricing presentation and navigation on their websites.Good Luck

  • Dave J.

    Anon–

    You are right. It is easy to say ‘you should’, but another thing all together to actually implement it. And implement it well. Maybe your comments would be fodder for another post in the series. Thanks.

  • Dave J.

    Anon–You are right. It is easy to say ‘you should’, but another thing all together to actually implement it. And implement it well. Maybe your comments would be fodder for another post in the series. Thanks.

  • Larry Hendrick

    Several good comments, Dave. I have to agree with both mike and anonymous on this one. As upper management gets younger, they tend to use the Internet more and expect more in return. If they have no reason to stay, they won’t.
    How do you get managament to see the light? Yep, paint the picture. All the how-tos and which-aways, laid out with ROI numbers to boot.

    Looks like you have your work cut out for you.

  • Larry Hendrick

    Several good comments, Dave. I have to agree with both mike and anonymous on this one. As upper management gets younger, they tend to use the Internet more and expect more in return. If they have no reason to stay, they won’t.How do you get managament to see the light? Yep, paint the picture. All the how-tos and which-aways, laid out with ROI numbers to boot. Looks like you have your work cut out for you.