Fair Trading Pricing
What can a b2b salesperson take from the seven retail pricing practices now being investigated by the UK’s OFT?
These “price frames” are:
| Drip Pricing | – where optional price increments such as taxes, card charges and delivery charges are added during the buying process |
| Time-Limited Offers | – eg. ‘offer must end today’ |
| Bait Pricing | – when consumers are drawn in with offers of discounts although few items are available at the discount price |
| Complex Pricing | – eg: offers where the price depends on numerous elements which may be conditional on each other |
| Reference Pricing | – eg: ‘was £100, now £60’ |
| Multiple Unit Price Promotions | – eg: ‘three for two’ |
| ‘Free’ Products | – when offered as part of a package, eg: ‘first two months free’ |
I’m sure we all recognise at least a number of these. It’s not that they are “illegal”. What the British regulator wants to ensure is that they help customers make better decisions, rather than mislead them.
Are you employing any of them? If so, then are they appropriately deployed with clarity? If not, where could you do so to both you and your clients’ advantage?