I don’t think it’s a dark pattern, but it makes me much much less likely to buy.
Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?
61–70 of 82 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?
#62Earlier 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…
>Companies DO NOT want to bid on labor, so they'll use whatever trick they can to avoid having to do it.
Workers also do not want to work cheaper than they can get, and last I checked, there's over 5 million companies in the US, and plenty of evidence that those companies are competing for labor.
So they do bid on labor. If a company does not match it's competitors, employees move. And a company has every incentive to pay more than competitors, up to the break even point, since it gets them better employees.
Even if a few companies collude, it open the door for a competitor to break ranks and steal employees. This breaking of ranks is prevalent in all sorts of cartels around the world - it's nearly impossible to make companies stick to an agreement when by breaking it they can gain advantage over rivals.
The carnival metaphor makes little sense. Employees and employers are in a market trading goods, nothing more, nothing less.
Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?
#63A startup doesn't necessarily want everyone to know its pricing. They might be happy to let potential customers know, but not competitors, family and friends, customers' clients and suppliers, the press, etc. Making people contact the company lets the startup screen inquiries. And competitors aren't likely to have the gall to ask.
Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?
#64Wow! 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…
Maybe it is really many possible product combinations presented as a comprehensive product or maybe they don't even have a product..
I'm sorry but what is a dark pattern if that doesn't qualify?
Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?
#65It Depends. If your target customer are large Business or Enterprise, then it is a great filter.
Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?
#66I always assume that if I have to ask for pricing then I can't afford it.
Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Within reason, I personally am not offended by small variations based on legitimate negotiating for larger volumes (or even smaller volumes). I feel like most places will give you at least a bit of a discount if you offer something in return like enough volume to make it less hassle to sell to you.
Or if you just ask... I've definitely gotten 5-10% "discounts" multiple times just by asking if they can give me one. I figure this is the "wasn't price sensitive enough to ask" surcharge.
But if the prices were super random feeling yeah, for sure. I haven't personally run into more than a ~5-10% variation myself usually.
I think the only time I hear about it is when I get a price from a vendor, turn them down, and then have them come back with an offer for the same thing at 25% off. At that point they're kind of highlighting that their pricing is 25% higher than it needs to be for them to make a healthy profit so while I might take them up on it (once) I'm extremely likely to find a new vendor.
I've definitely done that before with a company that had dramatically overpriced high speed cameras. We kept ordering from them because we didn't want to worry about changing the brand. I doubt we'll order from them again.
Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?
#68They try force you to watch/listen/engage into sales dance with their sales people.
Typical for overpriced products or middlemen-driven sales pipeline
Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?
#69Sometimes 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 cultu…
> How many slap a fixed price on the side of their house during a sale?
Everyone? Every house listing I've seen has a price on it. Negotiating can happen but advertising a price is the norm.
Re: Ask HN: Is “contact us for pricing” a dark pattern?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mostly agree with you, but I think there are forms of this that I would definitely consider dark patterns - The one that immediately jumps to mind is "Add this item to your cart to see the price". There's no good intention there, just manipulation. The statistics show a user is more likely to buy an item after adding it to their cart, and this forces them to do that before revealing pertinent information to the use…
While the "add to cart to see price" pattern may be dark, it's worth noting that the retail seller that makes you do this is probably not the party who's responsible for the pattern. It turns out that some manufacturers make the retailer agree to not advertise a price lower than MSRP. But, though they cannot /advertise/ a price below MSRP, they can /sell/ at a price below MSRP. I guess it's generally accepted that sh…
I know a successful business owner who uses this feature to then pay a tracking service to grab your email then spam progressive cart reminder and discounts in hopes of converting a sale. He says it’s very effective