This past year, I have been recommending to my clients that they should include a price comparison service, using a trusted third party provider, on their own website. Mostly, I was greeted with concerned expressions, frowns and some anxiety-ridden comments.
Typical arguments against the idea have been: “Our products are more expensive than our competitors.” “Our prices are higher than our retail because we are afraid to undersell them.” Or my all-time favourite: “It’s our company’s policy not to promote our competitors on our sites.”
Yep. All seemingly sound arguments…. that is if you live in a traditional marketing world. But we don’t. We live in a friction-free economy dominated by empowered consumers. So the rules have all changed.
From my view, having a price comparison service just makes perfect sense. Think about it. Your customers are on your site anyway. They are checking out your products and in the “consideration” zone. Everything we know about consumers is that they will look at the price and go, “hmmm… I wonder if I could get that cheaper somewhere else.” And as sure as the rising sun, they click away from your site, and onto Kelkoo, PriceRunner and wherever, to see if they can get the same product for less somewhere else. Chances are, they can and often do. Which makes me wonder why.
After all, shouldn’t the manufacturer be able to offer the cheapest price, always? Offer it marginally above wholesale price and you have the cheapest price online, and slightly better margins as well. The hotel industry has figured this out, and now many hotel chains, from the Marriott to the Hilton, guarantee the lowest prices direct from their website. Ask yourself, when was the last time you booked via an agent rather than direct? Once you know they have the best price, that’s where you go.
Research has now finally come to light to back up the argument for price comparisons on brand sites. The new survey by e-tailing group, “Comparison Shopping is a Way of Life”, shows that putting shopping comparisons on brand sites has a significant impact on visitor loyalty and trust.
The survey revealed that consumers are 78% more likely to return to a retailer who displays competitor prices and are 36% more likely to feel an increased sense of loyalty. More importantly, 53% feel that they no longer need to comparison shop for the given product. So essentially, that means you effectively keep every other visitor from leaving your site during those critical last stages if the consideration phase. Although consumer trust in competitor prices displayed over retail or brand sites is quite high, at 52% believing it, you can easily raise this by relying on trusted third parties.
PriceRunner now offer both white-labelled or co-branded comparison engines, for your own site. So customers will know that the pricing you give is exactly what they will find on the comparison sites.
The e-tailing group survey also indicates that consumers often spend up to half an hour using a variety of tools to research products before they make the purchase, so everything you can do to keep them engaged for that time, from providing consumer reviews, good and bad, to transparent pricing, all makes the difference in closing the sale online.
Original article here: http://www.marketingforecast.com/archives/2672
[Source: Hauss, Debbie. Research Shows Providing Price Comparisons Wins Shopper Loyalty, Retail Touchpoints. September 2009]
