JeffR Posted September 2, 2010 Share Posted September 2, 2010 I wasted a goodly chunk of my life over the weekend trying to track down some bits (both for a Landrover and a Mini). Can someone explain to me why a given supplier will have a website listing everything one could ever want yet not give prices. If I find the immortal phrase "ring for price" one more time I swear to God I will do someone a bloody mischief. To all the reatilers who may or may not be reading this - wanna know how to loose customers? Easy, don't put prices on your website. You see the cynic in me thinks that they don't give a price 'cos they are gonna screw you if they don't like the sound of your voice. Rant over Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landroversforever Posted September 2, 2010 Share Posted September 2, 2010 really irritates me too. Probably got a hideous price lurking! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gromit Posted September 2, 2010 Share Posted September 2, 2010 My impression of sites like that is that they don't update their site very often, and that they are more of the static-pages variety, rather than database-driven, stock-linked, price-shown variety. Therefore it's easier to just have people phone rather than keep their website up-to-date. Don't know if that's correct or not, but to me it just looks like they are too cheap to develop a proper website or too technically challenged to maintain one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandyManLuke Posted September 2, 2010 Share Posted September 2, 2010 If you want to do business with the company in question, ring up and ask, you can judge for yourself if the price given is reasonable or not, if you've done some research. If you don't want to ring up for a price, don't, source the goods elsewhere. What's the big problem? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffR Posted September 2, 2010 Author Share Posted September 2, 2010 The big problem is that if I need to phone for a price, then what was the point in looking at a website. Websites that with hold/don't/can't be bothered to show prices waste my time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aragorn Posted September 2, 2010 Share Posted September 2, 2010 Its much easier (and quicker) to scan a number of websites and compare prices etc than having to phone each company and trudge thru all the details on the phone lots of times. It would be akin to walking into currys, and nothing being priced. If your just browsing, or checking out a few stores before making a purchasing decision, you dont want to hassle the sales advisor for 20mins asking "how much is this set"... "and this one?" etc, you want it all on display so you can view the prospective options and make your mind up. I suspect that in some ways the companies will be hoping that once your on the phone, have enquired about the item and got the price, your less likely to then hang up and phone 4 other companies for the same info to see which one is cheaper, and will just go ahead with the order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirkthe1 Posted September 2, 2010 Share Posted September 2, 2010 I can understand what your saying, but personally I think its good they dont. By ringing you can establish much more-wether the parts on the shelf, wether its OEM, pattern or refurb item (or if they have these), etc. The possible advice they may give, either with fitting instructions or possible mods (i dont know your level of engineering skill, but everyone had to start with no knowledge once). Then finally you can quibble on price, blag discount. I still reckon if you know what you want its quicker the scrolling through pages on net. Maybe its just me, but i prefer speaking to people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simonr Posted September 3, 2010 Share Posted September 3, 2010 This is one of my pet hates too! Some retailers can be forgiven for it - such as those selling memory where the price changes minute by minute - but they are the exception. Some say that they don't want their competition to know what they are charging. I suspect that their competition will have phoned up and found out anyway though. I tend to take the view that if I have to ask, I probably can't afford it - so it's not worth asking and being disappointed / humiliated! This was why X-Eng had prices on the web from day one and the current stock level visible on the web site so you know its available when you place an order (another pet hate of mine is placing an order then having to wait six weeks for the item to come back in to stock). It does take more web development and updating effort than most companies can resource though. Si Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reb78 Posted September 3, 2010 Share Posted September 3, 2010 I tend to take the view that if I have to ask, I probably can't afford it - so it's not worth asking and being disappointed / humiliated! Wasnt that frequently the response folk received when they phoned up Scrapiron? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTd5 Posted September 3, 2010 Share Posted September 3, 2010 This is also one of my pet hates!!! Problem with ringing up is that you can be sure it will be 10.00pm in the evening or a Sunday afternoon when you are trying to source the parts and there will be no-one there to answer your call. The amount of trade that these companies must loose is stupid. We run an ecommerce website for our business its easy to update, requires no special skills to use, everything is done in-house so there is no IT people to pay and its costs us a monthly fee of less than £20 plus vat. So to me these people are just lazy and we are better off spending our money elsewhere! Rant over Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martifers Posted September 4, 2010 Share Posted September 4, 2010 I think the retailers are missing out on lots of opportunities by not pricing online. How often do you go somewhere looking for one thing and end up buying something else as well? This buying behaviour plays quite a large part in marketing, it's 'name'escapes me but loss leaders being an example where certain products pull in customers to the supermarkets in the hope that they also purchase other 'premium products', where they make their monies. This happens everywhere. Having to ring up to get a price on everything certainly puts me off.. Unless I was looking for something specific. I can't imagine it to be hard to link the online catalogue to current stock and price lists... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mo Murphy Posted September 4, 2010 Share Posted September 4, 2010 I see the new "orange extreme" company have dropped prices from their magazine adverts now. Didn't take long, did it ? Mo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reb78 Posted September 4, 2010 Share Posted September 4, 2010 I see the new "orange extreme" company have dropped prices from their magazine adverts now. Didn't take long, did it ? Old habits and all that........! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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