I don’t like mysteries especially when pricing is involved. To this day I have never understood why businesses continuously publish and advertise items online in hope of capturing potential consumers but are reluctant to publicly display the prices.
Most who are reluctant to publish their prices usually follow up with a number to call or “inbox for price” response. Apart from this being another expense and inconvenience for the customer, it often feels as if the apparent pricing strategy would be kept forever once protocol is followed. In such a digitally-connected world, this is laughable.
For clothing stores in Guyana, I figure the reluctance to share the prices is because they don’t want their competitors to see them, but in reality if you do inbox or call for the price, doesn’t this defeat the whole purpose? It takes only one person to publicly publish it and then it is there forever.
There is also an awkwardness when you have to ask for the price. I personally hate it. Most times you actually just want to access the worth as it relates to quality, but you are often made to feel like you can’t afford it if you refuse to buy it.
While I get that refusing to broadcast the prices might be a tactic to drive allure and desire, only a small fraction of products is worth that type of bourgeois marketing. For products being resold from Shein and Fashion Nova et al, there is no such need to be that exclusive. In markets that are so saturated, price points can’t be the only thing that is setting you apart and this goes for the majority of industries across the board.
Research shows that users typically stay on a webpage for an average of 15 seconds. That is a small timeframe within which to make an impact. Directing customers to make inbox or telephone inquiries could easily cause them to lose interest.
In a similar vein, as I was writing this article, I came across a viral customer review about a food establishment. It was a simple review, which, in my opinion, was meant to help. It was met with an outright hasty, condescending reply. The customer was then asked to take her business elsewhere (to a more prominent and expensive establishment). One can only conclude that it was code for ‘if you want to be treated better go to places that would charge you twice as much’.
That comment left much to be desired. In such an overactive, connected world where everything is more or less accessible and prices are visible even if you are just window shopping, why do people still feel as if value can only be tied to dollar signs? That whole fiasco could have easily been flipped into a lesson on marketing. People, all over, still have a lot to learn.
