Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM OCTOBER 2014 38 Elly Valas Retail Views Elly Valas is the Marketing Services Director for Nationwide Marketing Group. She can be reached at elly@ellyvalas.com or at 303-316-7569. Visit her website at www.ellyvalas.com. RO T his month's column is brought to you by the letter T. T as in "transparency." Or P for "pricing." I just ordered a new car. After I'd chosen the car, access- ories, color and other add-ons, I braced myself for the inevitable battle to come—negotiating the deal. To my surprise, though, Jack, my purchase associate at the Kuni dealership in Denver, simply printed off a list of all the similar cars sold recently in the area from Cars.com and offered me mine for $100 under the lowest price listed. No fuss. No haggling. No competitive shopping. While looking at different cars I'd heard of similar pricing strategies from other dealerships. Some use Edmonds.com, Autobytel.com or Truecar.com. Before writing this column, I tested Jack's price and it's still the low price leader a month later. At the Nationwide PrimeTime! show in August, I listened to a presentation by Jim Kane, CEO of Retail Web Services, LLC, in which he described the results of recent research conducted by All Your Retail detailing customer preferences when buying appliances, electronics and furniture. I found the findings to be very enlightening. The study was conducted in June with nearly 1500 consumers from across the country that mirrored national demographics in age and income. Participants came from big cities and small towns; from the east coast, the plains and the west. Participants were asked what they did first when they were inclined to make a major home purchase. 90.9 percent of appliance prospects and 88.7 percent of customers looking for furniture responded that the first thing they did was go to the Internet. OK. Gotta have a website. Check. 83.6 percent also said that the site's design was important. A 44-year-old man from Norwood Young America, Minnesota commented, "A well-designed website is like a well-designed brick- and-mortar store. It seems more professional, and it makes me feel more comfortable." OK. Gotta have a professional looking website. Check. The next question was about the importance of having product data on the website. "When researching an item for your home on a store's website how important is accurate and complete product data (pictures, dimensions, details about a product's features, etc.) in assisting you in making a decision to purchase the item?" 79.2 percent of respondents said that having product data on the site was very important and 18.5 percent said it was important but not everything. That's nearly everyone surveyed! And the results were consistent across all ages and incomes and across the country. OK. Gotta have a professional looking website with a complete and accurate product catalogue. Hmmmm. Not so sure? "I want a one stop shop. If the company really wants to sell an item they need to have all the necessary information for the consumer," said a 34-year-old woman from Chanhassen, MN. And a 49-year-old man from Washington DC said, "Not offering further exhaustive information for appliances is simply lazy and unprofessional." And here's the stunner. When asked "How do you feel and what do you do when a site you are shopping does not display prices?" 84.5 percent of shoppers said they move on to another site that has prices and 15 percent say they might stay, but they'd be frustrated. Wow! That's 99.5 percent of prospects that want to see prices when shopping on the Internet! OK. Gotta have a professional looking website with a complete and accurate product catalogue and pricing! Now you're really not sure! "They have something to hide if they don't show prices," said a 56-year-old woman from Big Flats, WI. And a 53-year-old woman from Dade City, FL summed it up this way "If a site will not show the price it indicates to me that the prices are too high." Again, these results were consistent for all ages, incomes and everywhere in the U. S. For more information about the survey, go to www.allyourretail.com/white-papers.html. It goes without saying that if you're going to have prices on your website that pricing has to be competitive. With tools like Retail Deck and other similar programs that crawl the web to ensure your pricing won't embarrass you, pricing your site and your floor realistically isn't nearly as hard as it used to be. You no longer serve your customer well by pricing products at some inflated MSRP and then "discounting" so that they get a "deal." Today's customer has access to a world of information. That information can either be used for or against you. The choice is yours. PRICING MATTERS

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