Why would you have a website listing all the products you offer, but not include the prices?
I’m looking to buy heating tapes, which come in various styles and lengths. I don’t care at all what the length of each piece is, since I know I’ll need a lot and 10 two foot sections will work just as well as 5 four foot sections, but price is a big factor in my decision and they’re not always priced the same per foot. I’ve found three companies whose products I’m interested in, but only one of them lists the prices on their website. So to figure out which product I want to buy, I need to call each company and ask for the prices of 30+ different products to figure out which is the most cost effective option. Or more likely, I need to call and get the email address so I can have some salesperson spend a half hour looking up prices and typing up a quote just so I can say, “Oh, your prices are higher than this other company’s. Goodbye.”
Just put the damn prices on your website. It’s not like it’s that hard to change the prices, and if you’re really concerned about people saying, “But your website says they’re 5 dollars cheaper!” then put a disclaimer on the site saying “Prices subject to change without notice.”
It’s crazy. I find this all the time.
I have to order electrical parts over the internet often and I’m always amazed that no-one seems to have prices listed for the more expensive stuff, like SqaureD breakers and high-end meters and such. You can go to the manufacturers website and sometimes they’ll have the “list” price.
For example, I need a certain kind of breaker and SqaureD will list it as costing like $1,495 on their site. Then I have to call seven different distributors to find who has it in stock, then when I find the guy that has one nearby I’ll ask for the price and get the “Who do you work for?” routine, they presumable have different pricing structures for different contractors. I’ll get quoted $597 for the same breaker the manufacturer has listed at $1,495, and no-one can buy straight from the manufacturer anyway. By the way, the same breakers can be found on E-bay (used/refurbished and sometimes new) for about $30. But I’m not authorised to buy from those types of sites. :rolleyes:
This makes comparison shopping for certain things impossible unless you have three hours to kill. Sometimes I have to leave a voice message for the salesperson (if the lead sounds promising, and this always results in a follow up call anyway since you can never give enough information in a voice message, it would seem) to call me back with a quote or shock, give my fax number so they can fax an official ‘price quote’ back to me.
Welcome to the '80s people.
Companies that don’t publish prices almost uniformly do that so they can screw low-volume buyers and offer sweet deals to “good” customers.
My employer’s mark-up on certain high-end products can vary from 20% to 100% depending on whether you’re buying 200 units this year or 3.