This is a topic I should’ve covered in my book, 50 Biggest Website Mistakes, but didn’t. When someone visits your website why make them ask “What’s the Price?”
I review a lot of products and look over a lot of sales pages either during the MU website critiques or as a web guy working on a website for a client. So, as you can imagine, I see a lot of sales pages, pricing tables, order buttons and such.
Something I see way too often is confusion when it comes to asking for the price. Too many times a website visitor has to look all over for an order link and price and what they get for that price. One quote that comes to mind is:
For instance, if you are selling a one-time coaching session and it’s $997 tell them it is a one-time payment of $997. If you are offering a payment option, tell them it’s three payments of $349 or whatever your chosen price is. When offering a payment option, I generally add a little more for the payments. With those two options, I would provide two buttons — the higher payment price on the left and the one-time price on the right.
In the scenario above, I put the one-time price on the right because I’d rather have the one-time payment instead of three payments. Granted I would receive more over time but that is only if they make all three payments, which is always a concern.
In another scenario, when offering a subscription where there is a payment of $97 per month, you might want to offer an annual payment of $970. If this is the case, put the $97 priced button on the left with the text “Order Today for Just $97 Per Month”. On the button on the right I would have the following text:
Pay $970 Yearly and Save $194
I do this because I’ve found that the retention rate is better on the yearly subscription, but this is something you would want to test for your market because every industry is different.
What started me writing this article was something I stumbled across on a service I’m evaluating. The price looked good. While not as great as I had originally perceived, it was still a decent price. That’s issue was that I had to ask, “What’s the price?”
While they did spell it out on their website, they did not do it well. It could be perceived two different ways. In fact, I conferred with a friend to see how they interpreted it before submitting a support ticket.
The page showed a monthly price and a yearly discounted price which is what I said to do. The confusion comes in with the price in large print is a per person price and is stated, “Per month, per person. Starts with two persons.” It could be conceived that the initial membership includes two people and each additional person is that amount.
It leads the way for confusion and makes the buyer feel cheated.
They drew me in with a good price only to find out that I need to pay double that initial price per month to get started. In this case, it wasn’t meant to be a bait and switch deal—it was just a matter of wording and confusion in the interpretation of that wording by the visitor.
In going through this thought process myself, it made me wonder if others struggle with this situation. Thus, this article for like-minded business owners so that you can avoid this in sales processes and not leave your customers wondering, “What’s the Price?”
“Too many times a website visitor has to look all over for an order link and price and what they get for that price. One quote that comes to mind is: A Confused Buyer Never Buys!”
For instance, if you are selling a one-time coaching session and it’s $997 tell them it is a one-time payment of $997. If you are offering a payment option, tell them it’s three payments of $349 or whatever your chosen price is. When offering a payment option, I generally add a little more for the payments. With those two options, I would provide two buttons — the higher payment price on the left and the one-time price on the right.
For instance, if you are selling a one-time coaching session and it’s $997 tell them it is a one-time payment of $997. If you are offering a payment option, tell them it’s three payments of $349 or whatever your chosen price is. When offering a payment option, I generally add a little more for the payments. With those two options, I would provide two buttons — the higher payment price on the left and the one-time price on the right.
In the scenario above, I put the one-time price on the right because I’d rather have the one-time payment instead of three payments. Granted I would receive more over time but that is only if they make all three payments, which is always a concern.
In another scenario, when offering a subscription where there is a payment of $97 per month, you might want to offer an annual payment of $970. If this is the case, put the $97 priced button on the left with the text “Order Today for Just $97 Per Month”. On the button on the right I would have the following text:
Pay $970 Yearly and Save $194
I do this because I’ve found that the retention rate is better on the yearly subscription, but this is something you would want to test for your market because every industry is different.
What started me writing this article was something I stumbled across on a service I’m evaluating. The price looked good. While not as great as I had originally perceived, it was still a decent price. That’s issue was that I had to ask, “What’s the price?”
While they did spell it out on their website, they did not do it well. It could be perceived two different ways. In fact, I conferred with a friend to see how they interpreted it before submitting a support ticket.
The page showed a monthly price and a yearly discounted price which is what I said to do. The confusion comes in with the price in large print is a per person price and is stated, “Per month, per person. Starts with two persons.” It could be conceived that the initial membership includes two people and each additional person is that amount.
It leads the way for confusion and makes the buyer feel cheated.
They drew me in with a good price only to find out that I need to pay double that initial price per month to get started. In this case, it wasn’t meant to be a bait and switch deal—it was just a matter of wording and confusion in the interpretation of that wording by the visitor.
In going through this thought process myself, it made me wonder if others struggle with this situation. Thus, this article for like-minded business owners so that you can avoid this in sales processes and not leave your customers wondering, “What’s the Price?”
A Confused Buyer Never Buys!
Think about that for a moment. Have you ever gone to buy something, and it didn’t have a price tag? The first thing you usually do is look to see if there is another just like that one that does have the price tag on it and hope it’s the right size. But what do you do if there isn’t one? Do you hunt down a sales rep, take it to the checkout and ask as you’re checking out? Or
just put it back?
I’ll usually put it down and move on thinking I wasn’t meant to buy it. That’s in the retail space but there is no excuse to have that issue on a website. There is no physical “tag” to attach to items sold online. You can put a button or a link and the price in plain view and it’s pretty simple.
Something else that is very important is to give them the exact price they will be paying. It doesn’t matter if the price is $19 or $1,999. If that’s what you want for the item, tell the prospect that’s what they’re going to pay.
It’s also a good idea to let them know what they are getting for that amount. It’s pretty easy if you are selling a book or t-shirt but if you are selling a service, coaching, or training you need to be very clear on what the offer is.
“Too many times a website visitor has to look all over for an order link and price and what they get for that price. One quote that comes to mind is: A Confused Buyer Never Buys!”
For instance, if you are selling a one-time coaching session and it’s $997 tell them it is a one-time payment of $997. If you are offering a payment option, tell them it’s three payments of $349 or whatever your chosen price is. When offering a payment option, I generally add a little more for the payments. With those two options, I would provide two buttons — the higher payment price on the left and the one-time price on the right.
For instance, if you are selling a one-time coaching session and it’s $997 tell them it is a one-time payment of $997. If you are offering a payment option, tell them it’s three payments of $349 or whatever your chosen price is. When offering a payment option, I generally add a little more for the payments. With those two options, I would provide two buttons — the higher payment price on the left and the one-time price on the right.
In the scenario above, I put the one-time price on the right because I’d rather have the one-time payment instead of three payments. Granted I would receive more over time but that is only if they make all three payments, which is always a concern.
In another scenario, when offering a subscription where there is a payment of $97 per month, you might want to offer an annual payment of $970. If this is the case, put the $97 priced button on the left with the text “Order Today for Just $97 Per Month”. On the button on the right I would have the following text:
Pay $970 Yearly and Save $194
I do this because I’ve found that the retention rate is better on the yearly subscription, but this is something you would want to test for your market because every industry is different.
What started me writing this article was something I stumbled across on a service I’m evaluating. The price looked good. While not as great as I had originally perceived, it was still a decent price. That’s issue was that I had to ask, “What’s the price?”
While they did spell it out on their website, they did not do it well. It could be perceived two different ways. In fact, I conferred with a friend to see how they interpreted it before submitting a support ticket.
The page showed a monthly price and a yearly discounted price which is what I said to do. The confusion comes in with the price in large print is a per person price and is stated, “Per month, per person. Starts with two persons.” It could be conceived that the initial membership includes two people and each additional person is that amount.
It leads the way for confusion and makes the buyer feel cheated.
They drew me in with a good price only to find out that I need to pay double that initial price per month to get started. In this case, it wasn’t meant to be a bait and switch deal—it was just a matter of wording and confusion in the interpretation of that wording by the visitor.
In going through this thought process myself, it made me wonder if others struggle with this situation. Thus, this article for like-minded business owners so that you can avoid this in sales processes and not leave your customers wondering, “What’s the Price?”
A Confused Buyer Never Buys!
Think about that for a moment. Have you ever gone to buy something, and it didn’t have a price tag? The first thing you usually do is look to see if there is another just like that one that does have the price tag on it and hope it’s the right size. But what do you do if there isn’t one? Do you hunt down a sales rep, take it to the checkout and ask as you’re checking out? Or
just put it back?
I’ll usually put it down and move on thinking I wasn’t meant to buy it. That’s in the retail space but there is no excuse to have that issue on a website. There is no physical “tag” to attach to items sold online. You can put a button or a link and the price in plain view and it’s pretty simple.
Something else that is very important is to give them the exact price they will be paying. It doesn’t matter if the price is $19 or $1,999. If that’s what you want for the item, tell the prospect that’s what they’re going to pay.
It’s also a good idea to let them know what they are getting for that amount. It’s pretty easy if you are selling a book or t-shirt but if you are selling a service, coaching, or training you need to be very clear on what the offer is.
“Too many times a website visitor has to look all over for an order link and price and what they get for that price. One quote that comes to mind is: A Confused Buyer Never Buys!”
For instance, if you are selling a one-time coaching session and it’s $997 tell them it is a one-time payment of $997. If you are offering a payment option, tell them it’s three payments of $349 or whatever your chosen price is. When offering a payment option, I generally add a little more for the payments. With those two options, I would provide two buttons — the higher payment price on the left and the one-time price on the right.
For instance, if you are selling a one-time coaching session and it’s $997 tell them it is a one-time payment of $997. If you are offering a payment option, tell them it’s three payments of $349 or whatever your chosen price is. When offering a payment option, I generally add a little more for the payments. With those two options, I would provide two buttons — the higher payment price on the left and the one-time price on the right.
In the scenario above, I put the one-time price on the right because I’d rather have the one-time payment instead of three payments. Granted I would receive more over time but that is only if they make all three payments, which is always a concern.
In another scenario, when offering a subscription where there is a payment of $97 per month, you might want to offer an annual payment of $970. If this is the case, put the $97 priced button on the left with the text “Order Today for Just $97 Per Month”. On the button on the right I would have the following text:
Pay $970 Yearly and Save $194
I do this because I’ve found that the retention rate is better on the yearly subscription, but this is something you would want to test for your market because every industry is different.
What started me writing this article was something I stumbled across on a service I’m evaluating. The price looked good. While not as great as I had originally perceived, it was still a decent price. That’s issue was that I had to ask, “What’s the price?”
While they did spell it out on their website, they did not do it well. It could be perceived two different ways. In fact, I conferred with a friend to see how they interpreted it before submitting a support ticket.
The page showed a monthly price and a yearly discounted price which is what I said to do. The confusion comes in with the price in large print is a per person price and is stated, “Per month, per person. Starts with two persons.” It could be conceived that the initial membership includes two people and each additional person is that amount.
It leads the way for confusion and makes the buyer feel cheated.
They drew me in with a good price only to find out that I need to pay double that initial price per month to get started. In this case, it wasn’t meant to be a bait and switch deal—it was just a matter of wording and confusion in the interpretation of that wording by the visitor.
In going through this thought process myself, it made me wonder if others struggle with this situation. Thus, this article for like-minded business owners so that you can avoid this in sales processes and not leave your customers wondering, “What’s the Price?”
