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I buy a lot of things for work and if I can find a company that has the price listed I go with them over the one that makes me contact sales for a quote almost every time
Well this one could be cheaper, but how could I even know, the price isn’t listed.
It’s not cheaper, it costs me time.
Absolutely! And having to tolerate annoying and intrusive sales people
Avoiding those are priceless
This could be a great use for a voice AI chat bot connected to your phone line. Prompt it with something like,
“You’re on a phone call to [Widgets Inc] to get a price quote for a [box of premium widgets]. You’ll probably be put on hold to speak with the next available sales representative. Just wait until you get a person on the line. Then, ask for the price and immediately start negotiating for a better price. Use whatever strategy you want but never agree to whatever price they offer. Keep coming up with more ridiculous reasons that they should give you an even better price.”
Then dial the phone, turn it over to the chat bot, and wander off to go do more important things.
I feel like the new samsung already has this feature
I like the cut of your jib
Especially considering that most of the time you’ll sit on hold which can be awhile
If the company says “call” I ain’t even going to bother because my 30 minutes is more valuable to me than whatever price they could say 99.9% of the time
If it were cheaper, the price would be listed
Sometimes you can blame the partnership agreement for that. Some manufacturers will have a MAP (minimum advertised price) and the distributor would be in violation of their contract if they showed it publicly.
Though that just shifts to being a manufacturer problem with the same result. Just saying it may not be the distributor being weird about pricing.
It’s more about not rewarding their disrespect and greed. Instead rewarding the company being open and upfront and not wasting my time
Exactly
Reward the company that respects me enough to not waste my time
If you have to ask for a price, it ain’t cheap.
If I have to ask for a price, I ain’t bothering
Are there any notable examples where it is? I’m not aware of any.
Timber merchants in the UK. The ones that don’t list prices are cheaper. Largely because they base their prices on the current price of wood. Those that advertised prices need a higher margin to tolerate fluctuations in the price of wood.
Huh. Interesting! Thanks for the example!
Just had one with atlantis. Straight up asked for the pricing of 17sqm delivered to metro melbourne.
'Oooh it depends on faaaactors. Tell ya what, how 'bout i get one of our sales guys to call you and work out the best product solution"
"Nope, 17sqm product xx, plus delivery to metro melbourne. That’s it’
‘Yes but factors’
Fucking bye Felicia
With office furniture it’s a little more common.
They like that sweet and stupid startup money.
If you’d like to pay via PayPal, contact our sales team.
For fuck’s sake, either you accept PayPal or you don’t. What kind of shady behind-the-curtains bullshit are you trying to pull?
The API for the PayPal checkout workflow is too complicated for us, but one of us knows how to manually type in the order details to send you an invoice.
They’ll probably send you the paypal friends link, which you can’t use for business purposes lol
Hahahaha, yep
I do the same in stores. If there’s no prices listed I’ll just walk away. I absolutely hate surprises at the register.
I “walk away” online as well.
“Sign in to get price”.
Guess what, it’s never a mind blowing low price. It’s like $5.00 less than normal. Hidden prices are never a deal.There actually can be bs from a manufacturer where a site cannot list an item below their MSRP so in order to do a sale they have to do the bs like “add to cart to see price” or making you sign in. Sure sometimes it’s not an amazing deal but it can often be the lowest price you can find an item because they aren’t allowed to advertise a price that low.
Edit: See comment below to learn about MAP “minimum advertised price” which is different from MSRP “manufacturer suggested retail price” leaving my above comment alone with its inaccuracy so that the below comment continues to make sense and you can learn as I did.
MAP (minimum advertised price) is often different from MSRP, but otherwise this comment is correct.
In some industries, like RVs or auto parts, the vast majority of products have a MAP. The manufacturers also have bots that scan the internet for MAP violations, and they’ll blacklist a vendor if they don’t fix the price within a day or two. (Which is really annoying when there’s a false positive and I get blamed for it.)
I think it’s partly so high volume vendors can’t put smaller vendors out of business by just reducing their margins as much as possible, and it’s partly because the manufacturer doesn’t want their products to look like they’re really cheap. Customers feel better about finding a “great deal” on an “expensive” product.
You’re being too generous…
It’s usually the exact same price or higher.
Or MSRP minus 10%, which they’re keen to draw attention to, despite the fact it’s on normal sites for MSRP -30%.
Or it’s at -35% MSRP with “handling fees” that put it back at -30%
Costco online is the only exception to this, for me. You need a paid account to shop there anyway, so I’m willing to jump through that hoop most of the time. It’s still a pain, and I’ve definitely closed the tab a few times on Costco when I was pretty sure I was getting a better deal somewhere else.
No price, no sale. I tell myself that whenever I have to walk away from a product that didn’t have a listed price.
What sort of places do this?
Thankfully not too many, Often I’ll find some things are marked but not everything in smaller stores like some grocery, variety stores, second hand shops etc.
I don’t think you need to have ADHD to not want to put up with shit like this.
I don’t think you need to have ADHD to read the only rule of the sub…
I have ADHD and even said the same thing seeing this.
Even worse: when you have to call to cancel a subscription.
I subscribed online, I should be able to cancel online.
Of course, it’s also hidden deep in the terms of service that you can’t cancel online. They know what they’re doing.
Think California specifically made a law that whatever the sign up method is there must also exist that method for cancellation.
Laws against bs.
What is the point of consumer protection laws if brands can just write “nuh-uh?”
We updated the terms of service. You cannot sue us for getting all your data stolen.
Feel the same way about restaurants that don’t have prices on their menu.
Basically assume “if you have to ask you can’t afford it” because if the price wasn’t an immediate deal breaker they wouldn’t be withholding it.
Same with job listing, of they don’t list the salary it’s because they know that stating the salary would make you less likely to apply.
Same with certain home improvement companies that hope once you’re on the line, they can close the sale there and then.
I swear they must make all their money off people who don’t want to think about what the job involves, and just hand over a chequebook.The water softener from Costco is £500, the one from ScrewFix is £400, but I’m curious how much the one from NameBrand is.
NameBrand website “Well, it can vary a lot depending on how complicated…”
Forum posts: “£2k including fitting and a year’s salt, £1500 for the unit”
(Which isn’t an insane price to just have it sorted, I just hate the bollocks excuses when everyone magically still comes out around £2k)The physical staircase will cost me about £1000, then a few days of skilled labour for someone to fit.
I wonder how much one of those “we’ll just handle it” companies in the back of the sunday supplement could do it for…Oh, that’s 15 times the price, wonderful.I get what your saying and obviously overpaying by 15x, like in your example is a terrible idea but, I will say, overpaying by a much smaller amount to save time is sometimes worth it.
One thing your example does not do, and its something most people don’t do is factor in how much your time is worth. Is spending an extra $500, for example, worth as much as multiple hours of your time?
I absolutely agree.
Honestly, if NameBrand posted their prices, I might have considered them, as once my time organising/plumbing (or paying a plumber) is factored in, the difference isn’t so massive.
I just loathe the principle of having to get a quote for even the basic device in a box!
Yes. It infuriates me that members of my species keep these places in business. They should all be out of business since absolutely no one should be buying their unpriced shit.
Short of custom work, but even still, give me a “starting at” price so I know whether it’s worth my time to investigate.
Yeah. Like a $1,900-$4,800. I’ve seen that a lot because even w/o custom work there’s a lot of options or additional features/drawers they can add in. Sizes, etc.
That happens at my job, we’re instructed to not give prices cause it depends on a number of factors but I do give starting prices and make sure to repeat at least three times that’s they’re the minimums and there is no upper limit cause it depends on those factors. It’s free to have one of my licensed inspectors go out and do his thing to provide an exact number anyways. The number includes taxes too so there’s no surprises.
I wanted to get a quote on a mini split, or ductless A/C, the HVAC company said they can send someone over to review the location and give me an estimate.
I’m not asking for a full system, I literally just need an A/C drilled into my wall, there is no need for someone actually visit my home to give a guess.
When somebody doesn’t want to give me a price, I’ve started asking them for an order of magnitude. Sometimes they still don’t want to say a number, but when I ask “is it 2$, 20$, 200$, 2k$, 20k$?” they will usually give me a ballpark, along with the factors that’ll make the price vary.
Sometimes you have to shame a person by insulting the number. Starting out at $2 and going up to an absurd 200k really just illustrates how wide of a range they leave open. Just give me a jumping off point. If you can’t, someone else can.
It’s a balance, they might not know exactly what the job would entail until they send someone to look, and labour could double the price if it’s something ridiculous.
However, they absolutely should be able to give a ballpark, and it drives me up the wall, especially when I’ve given enough details for them to do so.
I hate it.
If you won’t even tell me how many zeroes your service is going to cost, there is an absurdly high change you’re going to be wasting your engineer’s time doing a visit.“How much for a 12000 BTU on the ground floor with electrical already run?”
“Well sir, we can’t give an accurate number yet, as we need to send someone out”
“Not even a ballpark?” “I’m afraid not sir”Which led me to investigating what I could do myself…Turns out, they now make self-install units for about £600.
Or Costco sell a better brand one including fitting for £1500.Which is really all I want, minimum it’ll be 1500 bucks, maybe up to 3000 on the higher end.
Three different HVAC companies wanted to charge me 5k plus for a second compressor to cool my second floor. I bought a $500 u-shape window unit from Amazon and have kept it perfect for 2 years now. Some of these hvac folks are on fucking drugs I swear
Unless you’re just talking about a minisplit or something $5k is remarkably cheap for a full AC install. Theres a big difference between throwing a window unit in and having an actual AC unit installed. You can’t just slap a second compressor on an existing condenser. It would need a second condenser or an upgrade and second circuit run for your existing one, plus running refrigerant pipes, likely running new wiring, ventilation, controls, refeigerant costs and system tuning. A window AC unit isn’t even in the same ballpark as far as price goes.
say you want the condenser unit placed on your roof or backyard. the routing would be completely different. Say you have an unfinished basement vs they have to remove and replace a shit ton of drywall. completely different. the unit itself is a static price. the conditions of installing the unit are a huge factor. is it on a drywall wall or are your walls all poured concrete?
Understandable, but really unless the price difference is going to be triple the minimum, I just want a general guess.
There is a lot of info they need that frankly you can’t trust the average client to accurately give over the phone. They need to know what your walls are made of, are they concrete, brick, wood or metal stud? Are they going to need masonry tools? What is the interior wall material; asbestos reinforced plaster is still not uncommon in older houses and if they’re working with that the the price goes up dramatically? Is there electricity run to that location already or will they need a new circuit? If there is electricity run to that location does the existing circuit have capacity to handle the load? Is there even available space to mount the new unit? Is it in a neighborhood where it will need a cage around it to deter theives? And that’s only some of the info they need.
About the only accurate price they could give you over the phone is the cost of the unit itself which you could also just find via a google search. The actual labor and other costs will vary by orders of magnitude depending on certain conditions.
I mean you are talking about stuff where someone hires someone to make something that does not exist yet? totally get that. you are not buying so much as hiring someone in that case. if it exists and does not need to be modified though it should be able to be priced.
That exactly what I was thinking.
Guess i’ll take my business elsewhere. Too bad nobody else in this world sells desks 😘
I’d guess they don’t actually want to sell you a desk. They are probably in the business of selling hundreds of desks for offices, and this is their way of keeping out the small purchases that they aren’t targeting.
That’s just lazy. They can put min order quantity to achieve the same effect.
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Tbh I think that bugs everyone not just us lol
There’s an art supply store Michaels, they don’t list so much as a paint brush price on their site. This combined with their incessant need to ask me for my email every time I buy even one tiny thing at their store, ensures that I’m never going there again. From what I understand the employees get in trouble if they don’t ask and get emails which is bullshit
I just looked and everything has listed prices on their site. I thought it was weird you said they don’t list paint brushes cause I buy them from there somewhat frequently.
I use the Michael’s and joann’s apps for the coupons cause almost everything in those stores is overpriced. But the coupons are usually worth it.
yeah fuck that.
if they make you jump through hoops it was probably a shit deal anyway
If you’ve got to ask you can’t afford it.
3 star Michelin restaurants list their prices online and that’s about as exclusive as you can get. This is just hiding the price so they can try to strong-arm people on the phone.
Or get a sense of how little you know about the product/competition to judge how much they can get away scamming you for.
Lots of these places have discounts when you spend tiers of money. 1.5% discount if you spend 10k a year. 2.5% for spending 25k and so on kind of a thing.
Contractor rates basically, give us business and we give you a deal. So you may pay $100, but Bob can go and get it for $90.
“If only there was a way to keep track of that, maybe someone in accounting could think of something. Anyone got some ideas? No? If only those computer things were more useful, could we track with those? Anyone? Damn, I guess accounting will have to keep manually tracking everything. Why do we have a website again? Oh yeah, it’s like the sears catalog on the intertubes.”
-a company board room where everyone is 60+ and every time they want to receive an email they create a new Gmail account
Yea I see a lot of software online that has their tiers and pricing for it. The only time they have a ‘call for pricing’ is when it’s truly ridiculous amounts. They’ll have like
10 users 10 bucks 100 users 90 bucks 1000 users 800 bucks 100000 users call for pricing.
Most of these places have vendor portals so you can see individual pricing, you can also call, some places also sell to general public, but their pricing is based off of market conditions, so a week after the catalog is out, a large portion is outdated. General public don’t have accounts and the vast majority aren’t going to sign up for one off faucet cartridge either.
Do you think it would work for Walmart to price milk at one price the entire year for an example?
I think you missed this part:
It’s like the sears catalog on the intertubes
You know, where you can edit things quickly, or even have the price update automatically as your costs change.
So the issue being, everyone has their own unique pricing, and here’s the real reason, most people are friggen stupid. The customer will inevitably be logged out, and then when viewing the website get enraged when the pricing jumps 15% overnight. So when it defaults to “call or login for pricing” the customer should realize they are logged out, and they also aren’t seeing incorrect pricing leading them to go elsewhere.
People are stupid, keep this in mind when you think of why something is probably done.
If I’m looking at what amounts to a catalog, you better have prices, because your shit isn’t that expensive.
Yep.
If I have to ask, I’m not going to afford it.
Guess they think they make enough profit in gouging those who call that they don’t need to publish for the rest of us.
i have one amazon account i’m locked out from because i forgot the name i used to sign up for it (there are numerous ways i could’ve written it and they only gave me three attempts) and another one that’s blocked because i incorrectly filled my credit card details while ordering a gift card and about to just create a third one because they want me to call them and talk to support for both cases.
Mine got blocked for repeatedly calling to say items were not delivered.
I hsve taken more I’ve given Amazon so that’s a win for me.
Password manager with auto-fill can prevent both issues :)
how so? it would just offer me a list of possible combinations of name/surnames.
i could’ve written them in four different languages (english, ukrainian, russian, polish), and that’s not even including transcription into latin for ukrainian and russian.
and also they don’t even say if they expect name-surname or surname-name ordering, so the check is fundamentally broken and impossible to pass reliably.also the password managers usually don’t save cvv and even if they did I’d have to disable that feature because I’m using dynamic cvv that refreshes every hour
it would just offer me a list of possible combinations of name/surnames.
The password manager suggests the details you saved for amazon, usually at sign-in. It doesn’t just show you a list of everything you ever typed into a form field.
During the call: “The table is how much???”
