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Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?

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Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?

#51

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

ouid wrote: post #22
ChrisLomont wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gotten multiple jobs in life where I was able to negotiate a much larger salary then they had intended to pay due to being of more worth to them once they interviewed me. So that would be done away with? No thanks. I'm happy that people have varying skillsets and that employers can pay more or less for a posting based on the person they choose.

I think you're guilty of falling prey to the "decoy effect" here. The labor market is a carnival, and they're selling tokens to you. You can buy 25 tokens for 10 dollars or 15 tokens for 5 dollars. The latter strategy is locally optimal, and you are using that as an argument for it's global optimality. That's exactly the point of the con though. Companies DO NOT want to bid on labor, so they'll use whatever trick the…

No, he's not. That's what gets lost in the shuffle in discussions like this. He is saying it works for him and like it or not, that's what the vast majority of people care about. What's In It For Me?

Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?

#52

Post by soared »

ITT: Nobody who has ever been involved in enterprise purchasing and decision making.

When my employer (only ~300 people) switched to salesforce it took 3 years from when we started looking at vendors to completing the switch. Buying software at this level is not just adding it to your cart, its creating a project that will take up huge chunks of dev time. Its a discussion between parties, and the price (contract) takes months of work to agree on.

We hired a consultant literally just for redlining. https://blog.pandadoc.com/what-is-contract-redlining-and-con...

Just because you can implement easily does not mean 90% of the vendor's customers can.

Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?

#53

Post by ozim »

tylerrobinson wrote: post #19

Wow! A lot of fast replies here without much substance. "A dark pattern is "a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying overpriced insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills"."[0] By this definition, no, it's not a dark pattern. It may be a pricing strategy that you don't like, but not a dark pattern. It's an invitation to start a full discuss…

I hate it because it is used as a tool to find out "how much we can make that sucker pay" which is adversarial approach instead of partnership. So in the end it is device to sell me overpriced service.

There are pricing pages that have price x, price y and "enterprise contact us". So maybe vendor that has only "contact us" is selling only to F500 and I am not a customer for them.

Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?

#55

Post by hctaw »

neltnerb wrote: post #29
tylerrobinson wrote: post #19

Wow! A lot of fast replies here without much substance. "A dark pattern is "a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying overpriced insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills"."[0] By this definition, no, it's not a dark pattern. It may be a pricing strategy that you don't like, but not a dark pattern. It's an invitation to start a full discuss…

I almost only see this for very expensive non-commodity products. I think in these industries the vendors at least believe that they are more likely to make a sale if they do it person-to-person over the phone. I don't know if they're right or not, when I see that my first step is to look for other vendors. But I think that they simply believe that they are more likely to make a sale if they screen for only people in…

It's more about charging prices based on what customers are willing to pay rather than a fixed price. In B2B sales you can swing much higher prices from bigger clients for the same thing, but that's harder if they know what you charge smaller businesses.

Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?

#56

Post by xyzzy123 »

Sometimes there's no good reason, but the common case is:

It ensures you are captured as a lead and establishes a human connection. Serious buyers have no problem getting on the phone.

The fixed price you were quoted is a starting point for negotiation. It's the "book price", aka the chump price. You're leaving money on the table if you're not haggling with them or finding a way to get a better deal.

Enterprise culture is to negotiate price. They have purchasing teams - multiple people whose entire job is to get a better deal than whatever is listed on the website or the first number quoted over the phone.

These people are hard nosed and have zero problems calling for a price. A good purchaser on a big enough deal would rather hunt down your sales team on linkedin and start talking than accept a list price on your website.

As an aside:

How many people would hang a sign around their neck with a fixed price when looking for non-contract employment?

How many slap a fixed price on the side of their house during a sale?

Fixed prices are in some ways the anomaly; haggling mostly disappears when the cost of negotiation exceeds the benefit of price discrimination and products and customers are fungible.

Personally I love fixed prices but most business does not work like that.

Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?

#57

Post by antonyh »

There's no trickery, they just want contact details to get you into the sales funnel. It's a strategy, and just because there's no custom/bespoke pricing for you doesn't mean they wouldn't cut a deal for hundreds or thousands of users.

That said, I'm shocked they'd do this for a simple product selling a single item. It wouldn't be worth the time spent on the phone.

Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?

#58

Post by _wldu »

hctaw wrote: post #55
neltnerb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost only see this for very expensive non-commodity products. I think in these industries the vendors at least believe that they are more likely to make a sale if they do it person-to-person over the phone. I don't know if they're right or not, when I see that my first step is to look for other vendors. But I think that they simply believe that they are more likely to make a sale if they screen for only people in…

It's more about charging prices based on what customers are willing to pay rather than a fixed price. In B2B sales you can swing much higher prices from bigger clients for the same thing, but that's harder if they know what you charge smaller businesses.

People talk. I'm in a specific industry and on a lot of industry specific mailing lists. When companies charge some of us extra, everyone quickly learns about it and that ends up making the vendor look bad and makes everyone in the industry seek alternatives.

Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?

#59

Post by kangnkodos »

I once read that you can sell software to companies for under $100 or over $100,000, but not for anything in between. If a salesman is required, perhaps to customize the order, you end up on the expensive side. That side also has "contact us for pricing".

The same idea applies when selling other products to companies, with slightly different dollar thresholds.

Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?

#60

Post by ironmagma »

flax wrote: post #26
tylerrobinson wrote: post #19

Wow! A lot of fast replies here without much substance. "A dark pattern is "a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying overpriced insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills"."[0] By this definition, no, it's not a dark pattern. It may be a pricing strategy that you don't like, but not a dark pattern. It's an invitation to start a full discuss…

By that definition it _is_ a dark pattern. The thing people are being tricked into doing is divulging contact info/interest even if they're not going to buy at the eventually revealed price.

Also, the act of filling out a form may cause them to give undue weight to the product since there has been an “investment” made after submitting. So that is another way the pattern tricks you.
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