Jack's life advice: pricing

[jack]

Dear Everyone,

If you want me to give you money, please TELL ME HOW MUCH. Our civilisation is largely built on money, a fungible exchange medium, deliberately designed for people to be able to help each other faster. Saying "well, maybe we want your money and maybe not, but you have to waste four hours talking about it first to find out" to me just sounds like "fuck you, we're happy with our existing customers and we don't want any more of your smelly money."

And yes, I know why it pays people to be obscure and manipulative. But saying "it's not just stupid, I'm deliberately trying to take advantage of you because I think I can get away with it" doesn't magically make it ok.

Love, Jack

PS. My time is valuable. Your time is valuable. This transaction is NOT THAT COMPLICATED. Please phone me when we require a synchronous conversation or a social bonding ritual. "Click on this button to have us phone you up at a random time during the week" is pretty much the worst way you could ever get my attention.

Comments

[simont]

Yes, that's very annoying. I remember in particular getting somebody round to give me a double-glazing quote, and he spent a long time trying to get me to agree that I wanted his product before he'd tell me how much it was. I eventually made him give in, but it took two hours and I ended up with a determination to buy my replacment double glazing from someone else as and when I need it. (It wasn't urgent, and in fact I still haven't got round to it...)

I was especially annoyed because a lot of his sales pitch was to show the various security features on the sample tiny window he'd brought with him (which was admittedly a very cute object) and ask if that was the sort of security I wanted on my house. To which the only rational answer is that it depends how much it costs – security can't be assessed without that information, because a totally burglar-proof window which costs more than the burglaries it prevents would have taken from me is a losing proposition! But of course there was no possibility of persuading a hard-sell merchant of that when his entire sales strategy depended on conveniently not hearing it.

[andrewducker]

I loathe that in the software industry. Having to contact people to find out what the licensing costs puts me off massively.

[jack]

Yeah, I'd be very reluctant to even ask. And Joel Spolsky is the same, it's not just me :)

The annoying thing is, some people probably do this because they've just written some new software and don't quite know who will want to buy it yet, but lots of people do it because they want to capture as much value as possible out of "what you might be willing to pay", and you can't always tell which.

For that matter, you can't always tell who's doing it because they actually make more money by bilking a small number of people, and who's doing it because they haven't noticed that western civilisation is built on "not wasting time negotiating for stuff"... :)

[ptc24]

I've read somewhere - I think from Bertie Russell originally, but other sources suggest the same thing - that the move towards fixed prices, at least in Britain, was largely brought on by Quakers.

[jack]

Huh. That's rather awesome!

[sunflowerinrain]

Reminds me of almost every salesperson I've stupidly allowed into my house and time. Even telling them that I already know how it works doesn't help. I get crosser and less courteous the longer they insist on going through their pointless pitch in spite of my attempts to hurry them to the useful part, and have occasionally ordered them out before they've got to the price. I think I've only ordered the offered product twice, and one of those times was because the front door urgently needed replacing.

[sunflowerinrain]

Coo, another good thing done by Quakers.