I target a small niche with one of my websites. These people are wanting custom items and money is not(should not be) an object. I sale to them with LARGE category page pictures and they have to open the product page to see the price.
The reason being is that the price is a range. These products are customize-able and instead of showing “starting at” I added something else more valuable in the price field. I advertised we offer a large selection of customizations. I felt it had more value than the price. Seeing how I have no idea how much customization they will want, a starting at price I feel means very little.
Anyone else have any input? Is a price all that valuable when you are offering lots of designs on a single product page?
You’re probably going to get mixed reactions, depending on the person responding. However, I’m in my Master’s for software application development and currently in my second week for my mobile applications development course.
Personally, I dislike having to complete extra steps to get information, I do agree with the author in the above link.
Just like visiting a website that has several ads and only a paragraph or two of content, making me scroll through many pages just to get all the info. If I have to make extra effort, I’m leaving your site/app and find the information elsewhere.
Another example are Google results, the top results display prices, not “click for more info”. Display a starting price, then offer customization, or display a disclaimer noting “prices may vary.”
The adwords team actually got onto us because our products are advertised at say 49.95 but because they range in price they told me it was not allowed. Google does not want you to click on a product that has a low advertised price but is really much more. Google was pulling data from the carts “starting at” price.
Makes me wonder if it has to do with truth in advertising as well.
Would you happen to have a link or image to share to get a better idea? Edit: actually, what product or service are you offering?
When I looked for “floor lamps” with or without “price” the first result images were sponsored ads, an image, and the name of the company below. When I searched for “golf clubs” images with prices were displayed.
I do not have an example as of now. It seems on checking, google has found a way to get pricing from the options and advertise them. For a while they were de-listing my products because of pricing issues.
I will have to consider finding a way to add a “starting at” price to my listings. My cart/template is not set up to do what I really want without modifications. We just launched this store a month ago.
Here is the category page:
We have no option to show the customer custom colors are available. The “starting at” price spot allowed me to add the color chart but I had to remove the pricing. The cart wants 600+ to give me the option to show both price and what colors are offered.
I think I remember seeing your site before. You do have a bit of difference because of the lengths and options.
In your situation, with the link you provided, I would say remove the prices, on sale, and free shipping (anything cost-related) from the sort by menu. Use that page to promote your product.
Yes, the left side menu was removed, images made very large and pricing below the product was replaced to show custom colors. The top navigation still is there but can be edited to turn it off as I manually place the products in an order I like.
I think it wouldn’t hurt sales and you’re on the right track. You can always look up your competition and see how they make their sites.
I actually think it would be a bad idea to include the prices on that page. You could probably get away from using the colors as well if every product has the same available colors. Keep this page as a base product page, ratings would come in handy.
Would a price range make any more sense? Do some models go up to a larger and more expensive version than others? If that’s the case, you could group things by price range.