When Should You Reveal Pricing to Online Buyers?
When to reveal pricing to prospective business product buyers is a hot topic for vendors – especially when it comes to revealing that pricing on the Web or via email. There’s a fear that providing pricing information too soon will cause price erosion - that you’ll lose money on the sale if the pricing conversation isn’t timed just right. Some vendors even view sales prospects who come to them as Internet leads as “mere price shoppers” – and therefore not ideal candidates.
Is this Really a Problem?
It begs the question: Is a sales prospect who is ready to discuss pricing early in their research process really a problem? After all, the easiest way to lose money in a sale is to not get the sale. Or worse - let one of your competitors get the sale. Today, vendors have more to lose by holding back pricing information than giving it out too soon.
Distinguishing Budgetary vs. Final Pricing
According to a study conducted by Enquiro and Marketing Sherpa, the most important information B2B buyers are looking for when they’re researching products online is pricing information, followed by product information, and then features. But what’s important to distinguish is the difference between budgetary pricing and final sale pricing.
A prospective buyer researching online, more often than not, is looking for pricing guidelines – a range – in order to see if the product or service will remotely fit their budget. And this is something that both of you want to establish early on anyway – are your products even in their price range? If you’re within range of each other, then it’s worth continuing your conversation. If not, then determining this fact early on will save both parties precious time.
Get there Before Your Competitors Do
Sharing your price ranges on your site, reseller sites, and comparison shopping sites gives you the opportunity to begin the discussion with prospective buyers who are looking for this information. With buyers who are actively researching your products online – you want the opportunity to get to them first – before your competitors do. If your competitor is providing pricing information and you’re not – they may be further down the road than you are in terms of establishing a relationship with the buyer and beginning to influence the decision makers involved with the purchase.
According to the B2B blog Industrial Marketing Today, many businesses fear that revealing pricing information online will put sensitive information into the hands of their competitors. But the truth is – your competitors are most likely already familiar with your pricing – either from talking to your customers, your ex-customers, or even mystery-shopping you.
The Beauty of the Price Range
Sharing your price ranges or pricing guidelines helps to appease your sales prospect early on, so they can see if your products and services fit their budget, while giving you the opportunity to demonstrate value, savings, and ROI that support the higher end of your price range once you start talking.
After all, when it comes to Internet lead generation, the goal is to have more prospects than fewer, and you don’t want to ignore a sales prospect who has already expressed interest in your products and is ready to talk terms.