SmallBizResource Blog -- Business Know-How

No Price, No Sale

Posted by Janet Attard, Courtesy of Business Know-How Thursday, Aug 14, 2008, 09:42 AM ET

From printer paper and toner to shipping cartons, business books, airline tickets, computers, printers, and packaged software for our office PCs, I do a lot of shopping -- and purchasing -- online.

I also buy ebooks and software for the servers that BusinessKnowHow.com and our other sites run on. And that, surprisingly, is where I have the most trouble.

The difficulty has little to do with the availability of products. Usually there are a number of products for any application I have in mind that will run on our servers. Where the problem arises is with sites that don’t post their pricing.

Now, I know some businesses think it’s better to hook prospective customers on the benefits of owning their products before giving them the price, but that is not how small businesses (and probably a lot of big businesses) want to shop.

When I start researching a product or service I’d like to buy, I go to one or more of the search engines and do a search. I visit a few of the sites I find to see what their offerings are, how the features stack up and what the pricing is. At this point I’m not looking for the lowest price, but rather price ranges to see if what I want to buy fits into the budget.

When sites don’t list their prices, I have no way of determining whether their product(s) should get put on my short list unless I want to fill out a lead form and waste a salesperson’s time and my time to get information that should have been online. So I forget about them, assuming they’re probably more money than I want to spend.

The result is a lose-lose situation. I probably miss out on some products or services that would work well for my business. The manufacturer or service provider is missing out on any purchases I would have made -- and any purchases that might have occurred through referrals I might have made.

If you would like to reach and sell to small business owners, be sure your pricing is available (and findable) on your Web site. Don’t make it a mystery. List the different versions of your product or service and their prices. You’ll save your sales people time -- time they can use to follow up with qualified prospects, instead of chasing useless leads.

For 10 more tips on how to build a profitable Web site, click here.

Business Know-How