Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
The Effects of "Call for Pricing" Pricing Structures
-
I have a wholesaler who sells great products but they have an internet pricing policy that states we cannot show prices online and that we must have a "call for pricing" or "request a quote/price" button instead because retailers are losing sales due to lower prices online from other retailers.
I know, I know.. They are out of their mind. I have already told them that they should have online MAP pricing requirements to protect their retailers but they refuse to even set an MSRP! I've been looking for some articles to show the statistics of customers lost from not having a price on your site.
Does anyone have any information or suggested links on this topic? and the final question is if I was to remove the prices from my website, would that in turn affect my rankings?
-
Personally, if I can't find a price I hit the back button. This applies both to things I'm ready to buy right away and to things where a consultation is needed. For example, when searching for a company to do an animated explainer video for my site I only requested official quotes from companies that listed rough pricing estimates. And I only submitted my contact information to companies that didn't request a phone number. I have a fear of getting endless high-pressure sales calls.
Does my mentality apply to other people as well? I don't have stats on it, but probably, at least to people around my age (24). I want to do things when I want to do them. Usually that's at 3am. I don't want to call and leave a message and have somebody call me back at 8am when I'm sleeping. If I've made up my mind to buy something and I'm not allowed to buy it (reminds me of Apple forcing you to wait in line even if you already know what you want) I'll move on to the next vendor. If I need to get a quote, I want to do so by filling out a form. I'm also fairly introverted, and would rather not talk on the phone unless I'm in the mood to do so.
Additionally, when I have to call for a price I feel like it's going to be like buying a car. I don't feel like wasting my energy and emotions in a bartering process. I don't feel like being judged for how much I can probably afford and being charged accordingly.
Sorry I don't have any numbers, but that's my gut feeling.
-
I would imagine it would affect sales. There's probably no way around that. If they do this make sure call tracking is implemented so they can see what it does to their conversion rates.
As for rankings, Nakul Goyal gave the best answer so far with a first-hand account. He said they didn't change. But I would also imagine that you'd lose some sales from other channels that you can no longer participate in without pricing, such as Google Shopping, Amazon, and price-based comparison shopping engines.
There are other ways to block people from scraping your site for pricing besides requiring customers to call, so I wouldn't say that issue justifies this strategy on its own.
Good luck!
Everett
-
I am sure they did, but we were never able to have a read on it because price data was never added to the site. We just started measuring the Call to Action / Conversion as a successful RFQ or a visit to the contact page from these product level pages.
-
That's good to know but did it affect sales? It seems that less people are likely to call than are to just go ahead and check out.
-
Yes, but in our industry we have a set MAP Pricing policy with all other product suppliers which sets a legal limit on online pricing, normally about 20% below MSRP.
I personally will not call for pricing on most products. I assume it means that the price is too high. I can't imagine how many other people feel the same way and how many customers they're/we're losing from it.
-
Big companies hire computer savvy guys to run scripts and to take pricing from thousands of products from hundreds of competitors so they can undercut them or at least be competitive with them and use their strong brand name. This might be one of the reasons for this practice.
-
I worked on a B2B with a similar problem sometime back. The business decided to implement a Request for Quote system. And there was no impact on the rankings.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Requiring customer agree to shipping terms at checkout
I work for an ecommerce company that has many of its shipments go by LTL freight. Our customer service team has issues with a few customers per month that aren't equipped to receive freight shipments which leads to returns and other issues. In an effort to better inform our customers, the customer service team is requesting that we add a checkbox to the checkout that requires customers to agree to our shipping and returns policy, including a link to the policy page. I am wondering how concerned people here would be that requiring the customer to check a box agreeing to those terms would lead to more customers abandoning during the checkout process. Or do you think it's not a concern? Thanks for your thoughts.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Kyle_M0 -
Partial Website Translation - Strategy Debate
Hi We have a travel site with over 3000 pages in English. Of these around 200 relate to products and the rest are content articles, most of which with very low traffic. Certain products and pages appeal directly to users in different languages (around 20-30 out of 200 for each language). We are debating how to go about translating these pages... If we did "oursite.com/es/product", "oursite.com/de/product", etc then users entering the site on these translated pages from Google would be limited to seeing a very cut down site, bearing in mind most speak English and would also be able to interact with our English language content we are probably losing out. Also, if we detected user language on entry, we would show effectively hide most of our product and content from users. Any suggestions or ideas about how to go about this without losing engagement/conversions/creating a mess?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | ben100010 -
Multi Step Form or Standard Form for Data Capture
We are redesigning our web site real estate (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com). A key component of the site is the property search form. Currently visitors completes 5 fields and properties that meet the criteria are displayed to the visitor. I have noticed that my leading competitors (www.42floors.com, www.squarefoot.com) use multi step forms that ask single questions of the visitors. In effect they are reducing complexity by asking a single question per form. However the visitor must complete additional forms. Before results are served, both competing sites require the visitor to release contact info. 42floors has a clever inducement for the visitor to release their info: "Their are 127 listings that haven't been posted yet, but are visible to members." Once the visitor releases info they get to view the listings. While this is somewhat coercive, I suspect it is effective in obtaining customer date. While I understand it may result in some visitors bouncing off the site, the form completions are extremely valuable. Currently we provide listings without requiring registration but obtain very little data about visitors. In New York City, there are so many commercial real estate sites that visitors have a tendency to bounce from one to another without leaving info or calling. Multi step forms would allow me to add questions that are highly pertinent. Like when do they need possession, how long a lease term. By being asked very specific, relevant questions I wonder if that would not in fact increase the likely hood of the visitor to release info Any advice?? I am attaching several of the forms in question. In the event that we proceed with a multi part form, their are certain services like Leadformly that integrate with Wordpress. I see the eliminate the need for a Capcha and have other advantages. Is it beneficial to use such a package? iQUNh 19ugT he23uak
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Kingalan10 -
Overlay / modal for product pages - bad or good for SEO?
Hi all, I am considering using full overlays/modals for an e-commerce site for all our product pages (category/listing pages will be "normal", the product page will come over the listing page as an overlay/modal when you click on the product). Those “product overlays” will also be accessible directly with own URL (if need to be linked to for ex.). All the literature I find out there treats overlays and modals as “marketing” ones (ads, sign-ups, etc.) and is generally critical to overlays when it comes to SEO, while also saying that an overlay that has to do with good UX should not hurt the SEO of our site. What do you think? Will all product pages as overlays be considered as good UX by the search engines and therefore not be negatively impacted, SEO speaking? Or should we stay clear of overlays and create “normal” product pages? Thanks in advance! Arnaud NB: The reason we want to create those overlays are for design and UX purposes, and try to increase our conversion rate.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Arnaud_Fo0 -
Has anyone ever used Adwords' Forwarding Numbers as a Call Tracking Service?
Hi, I was taking over a client's Adwords account from a previous agency. It appears the former agency added the Google Forwarding Number (for call tracking on call extensions) and added it to the client's website. Therefore, if anyone calls that number from the website, it would register within Adwords (just not as a conversion but as a click under "call extensions") The problem: you can't filter by phone number (the same number calling +1 would indicate spam) you can filter by device (so tablet / computer) can be considered spam generally. Questions: Anyone ever used this before? Your thoughts? Does anyone know if there is spam coming from mobile devices now-a-days? Please tell me what I'm missing. Any advice / anyone else seen this / done this? Thanks Moz Community, Cole
Conversion Rate Optimization | | ColeLusby0 -
Use "Brand Name" or things like "Free Shipping" in Ecommerce Product Title Tags?
Given the current industry best practices and changes to Google algorithms, should I be using "Product name...Brand Name" or something like "Product Name...Free Shipping (or similar)" in my ecommerce title tags? Thanks!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | jeffbstratton0 -
How highly do you value a link from the BBB?
What I would like to know is how valued a link from the BBB is. I've searched various forums and websites to try and put a value on it, but I can't find a whole lot of useful discussion on it and how it can affect rankings. My ecommerce company has been approached by the BBB for Accreditation, which is something I've always been somewhat interested in. I realize many business owners either love/hate the BBB, but so far I have had several claims with them and they've always sided with my company, despite not being accredited. The BBB rep immediately started spouting off the benefits of having the BBB link to you, and I could see that as being true. They have a DA of 96, and obviously not everyone can get a link on that website (money and good reputation required). However, he probably exaggerated when he said often times businesses skyrocket in the rankings because of this backlink; he also seemed to think having the BBB code and badge that link to the BBB website seemed to affect rankings, which I don't think is correct. I also think that having their badge on our website could increase sales conversion (and maybe even increase the number of people that complain to the BBB). I'm not too worried about the complaints since we don't have ethics problems. The accreditation is $750 (seems high) and I'm not sure if it's really worth that amount, but I could be wrong. Would love some professional insight on if the BBB is worthwhile link or if it's overhyped and the money would be better spent elsewhere. At face value, it certainly seems like a good investment and I'd love to hear some insight as to how much value their backlink truly has to a company or if that money is better spent elsewhere.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | CHEATERS3 -
When is it good to use target="_blank"
Hi! Just wondering about user experience and when to use target="_blank" in links on the website. Let's take homepage, for example. Is it better to have social media icons (for Facebook page or Twitter or Google+ page) open in a new window on homepage? When is it appropriate to use target="_blank" and when using it is too much for a user to handle? Am I right to say that target="_blank" should be used when you don't want that link to get on the way of what visitor is doing? What's best for conversion? If you have some resources on the subject - feel free to share them. Thanks! I appreciate all responses!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | MaxMinzer0