Many people on this thread (https://www.nairaland.com/6138119/dm-price-why-online-vendors/3) are just condemning the sellers without taking a walk in the seller's shoes. Some are calling the seller CON ARTIST. Lol. Even the most legitimate business will tell you when you make a public inquiry on a social media page to DM for price. It is not a scam, it is not to defraud anybody, it is a STANDARD business operations procedure on the major social media platforms by all the big business. Even outside of social media, for certain products among legitimate service providers or sellers, they use the term CALL FOR PRICE or REQUEST A QUOTE. CNN won't display their advert rates on their pages. You have to call for price, or send an email to that effect. You can't compare that with a supermarket, a supermarket deals in basic retail for basic commodities. It is a different sales aspect. If you go to Coscharis website or any major car dealerships dealing on brand new products, you won't find price listed on their pages. You have to call for price or request for quote. Go to Innoson official website and tell me whether you will see price there. No! You have to call for price or request for quote , which is an equivalent to DM. Does it mean Innoson is a con artist, like some people are saying here? Or does mean Innoson is a scam that wants to swindle the public and sell a N2 for N300? No! Scam or deceit etc is another aspect and it is not necessarily compulsorily dependent on DM for price. Noz that's not true. The people making this complaint have obviously never walked in the shoes of being a seller dealing with the public before through social media. There are several reasons sellers do it, I will list a few that I believe is general. DM for price or call for Price or Request a quote etc

1) to separate or filter serious buyers from unserious or window shopping buyers. Many sellers are faced with situations of having unserious buyers or time wasters knocking on your door. Maybe out of 20 coming by, only 2 are buying. That's not the problem. The problem is the resources, time, materials and manpower spent and wasted in attending to such people. Personally, you will see some buyer's making inquiries, they ask for everything as in every detail of the product, they ask for pictures, they ask for videos, they ask for review, they ask for price, location etc and THEY DISAPPEAR and walk away. That's ok if it was 1 or 2 people doing so, but when such practice is a norm among the buying public, then it's a problem to the seller for many valid reasons. So in the world of sellers, such Buyers window shoppers are called time wasters and you per seller industry, better ways had to be invented to curb this and filter the serious buyers from the unserious buyers. So to protect themselves timewasters, certain filters were introduced and DM for price is one of the filters sellers deploy. If a buyer feels bothered that a price isn't stated, so bothered and angry to the point that they stop themselves from making the inquiry by contacting the seller privately, trust me as a seller myself (and a buyer too), 90% of such people are timewasters. They don't have anything to buy in the first place. They just want to snoop around for fun or for whatever reason. It is unfair to sellers to waste their resources attending to such people. If call for price is a BIG Issue for you, most likely, price will be a big issue for you and probably don't have money to afford the product to begin with. Because, if you investigate closely, out of say every 10 people that DM the seller for price, after they are told the price, many still don't buy, maybe like only 2 for every 10 price inquiries will turn to sale, even when the price is actually very good and competitive. Why some or many buyers like and enjoy wasting seller's time and resources is a story for another day.

2) it allows the seller to keep track on sales potential. When people DM for price, it goes to show they have certain level of interest beyond the Zero interest. Every interest beyond zero interest has the potential to turn to a sale. It can go on to conclude the sale process or not, but it has a potential nonetheless. People that have zero interest or timewasters, many of them will be filtered out by the DM for price barrier or filter. That you are going the extra mile shows you have some level of interest, so a seller can actually make or compute a pattern out of that to track the sales potential performance of a particular product relative to other products he is selling. The seller can say that, Oh, for product A, 50 people made a price inquiry, but product B, 3 people made a price inquiry, so product A has more potential for sales than B. Because generally the bigger the inquiries, the bigger the sales potential.

3) It gives the seller the opportunity to convert an undecided buyer into a sale. Many buyers out there are undecided. They are confused, they are unsure, they are on the fence and need a little push to get them to buy or not buy. They are what we call "silent buyers", and just like in politics where they use the term "silent majority", youl will discover that many silent buyers are usually the majority as per potential customers. Most of them have interest, but that interest is neutral and sitting on the fence, they just require something extra to push their curiosity. And PRICE is a major something extra that provides that push. Their curiosity about what the price could be, pushing them to initiate a conversation with the seller. Otherwise, many of these silent buyers will just look and look and when that spark of initial curiosity that attracted them to your advert fades, they will just walk away. But by pushing their curiosity further to initiate a conversation with a seller, the seller has created an opportunity for himself to have a discussion that can possibly be the deciding factor that will push such silent buyers to make a purchase. By asking seller for price, he has the opportunity to talk to them about other things or it might just even be they way the seller responded and the buyer likes it and is like Oh, I think this seller is cool, let me buy, and the sale is concluded.

4) It is a basic way to limit scam. Yes you heard me, or do you want me to loud it for you? SCAMMMmmmmm . Many people or buyers think it's only buyers that get scammed, but no, sellers get scammed too. So how does price relate to this. IMPERSONATION. Many times, having all the information out there in public domain at once gives scammers a very easy access to wean all info they need without even making any contact with the seller. They just go to his page and copy everything and disappear without the seller even knowing. So sometimes, putting filters or barriers is one of the strategies sellers deploy to limit such opportunity of impersonation by scammers who pose as buyers. Whether this strategy is very effective or not, or how effective is it to combat scam is another topic.

5)

aAK1:
Now I do this but not for the reason everyone is thinking. I run promoted Facebook ads on my business page where I sell exotic animals. Some times in the business you sell eg, a pair of chicken (exotic chicken) for 100k. You state the prices and next thing some ignorant people who behave like all roads lead into their stomach will come and start saying things like 100k for only 2 chicken. If you allow those comments continue, they will mess up your add. It’s best people who are informed call me or send me messages privately

Another very good reason. You have many people like that on Nairaland. They are not interested to buy, they don't have money to buy, but they come around to troll a seller's advert and make provoking comments, because their aim is to ruin the seller's advert thread just to catch fun. Many mad people like that are lurking around social media pages of sellers.

These are some of the valid reasons. You can add yours

Lol

While your rejoinder was necessary and commendable, there are more grey areas you still didn't address in your very long post.

First off, I'm not sure the op of the initial post, not the subsequent respondents were in any way referring to the CNN's, BBC, Coscharis, or Innosons of this world.

He/she was referring to people selling stuff as small as a wrist bead.

In my opinion, the simplest and best way to curtail all you stated above as being the reason for the "DM for price", is simply to state the prices along with the advertorial and be sure to say those are your best prices. This way, you are almost certain that whoever was coming into your DM wasn't coming to start haggling any further about prices but to finalize the purchase.

The only reason I would have leaned towards in your argument would have been, " sellers request for the dm for prices because they do not want to clog up their advert space with unnecessary haggling, etc". This excuse would have been tenable.

Fixing your prices alongside your advert is the best way to filter out time-wasters and unserious buyers.

Gbe enu oshi ee dake! Shut d fu*k up ur mouth!

daddytime:
Lol

I'm a seller (and a buyer too), I walk in both shoes so I know how things are. But I have to make this thread as a counter thread because of some the disturbing scam or con artist claims some people there were making. If we don't address the issue now, before you know it, they will turn it into a "national anthem" and a general public opinion that anyone that posts DM for price (or Call for price, or Request for Quote) is a scammer. That is very wrong. So we have to enlighten the public.

151487made:
Gbe enu oshi ee dake! Shut d fu*k up ur mouth!

Nice write up.. The reasons are good but nigerians take advantages of everythings. Thank you

upower123:
Nice write up.. The reasons are good but nigerians take advantages of everythings. Thank you

That's why it our duty as genuine sellers to educate the public before the public gets misinformed. If you go to Elizade website, you won't see price there. You have to Request for Quote etc which is an equivalent of DM for price. The car dealer that sold the GLE to Bobrisky is in Lekki, I know him, he advertises on Instagram, he is very popular there, and if you ask him for price on his adverts, he will reply DM for price. None of his adverts carry a price tag. He will state it there DM for price. But he is not a scammer, he is 100% legit, 100% has integrity. So it is wrong for people to label everyone that says DM for price as a scammer or con artist. Scammers that scam people or sellers that are deceitful will continue that evil works whether they write DM for price or not.

Iyooooooo cartel

Immediately i see dm for price in any products or something nothing pm earth can ever make me patronize you.
If you can't fix your price in your update on then take a rest. Naso i see boxer i fell in love with it and dm the girl for price she told me 5k just for one piece of boxer.
Keep deceiving yourself

Your comparison is way irrelevant.

Seun stated his costs for advert; did he tell anyone to 'DM for price'?

What standard? Set by who?

Placing your price in adverts even saves you and your potential customer further headaches.

'DM for price' sounds as an insult sef.

Iyoocartel:
Iyooooooo cartel

Immediately i see dm for price in any products or something nothing pm earth can ever make me patronize you.
If you can't fix your price in your update on then take a rest. Naso i see boxer i fell in love with it and dm the girl for price she told me 5k just for one piece of boxer.
Keep deceiving yourself

Every serious seller knows you can't sell to everybody and tries to create their own niche in the market. You are complaining about N5k for one boxer, as if it is every boxer that is N200. There are N50 boxers and there are N500k boxers etc. It is left for you to cut your coat according to your cloth. Didn't you read the news yesterday on Nairaland that Davido bought a bicycle for N1,300,000? I'm sure you will call the seller a thief, but fail to realize that all products are not the same. If someone calls a N200 boxer for you N10,000, it doesn't matter, nobody put a gun to your head and forced you to buy, you still have the choice to walk away. So there's no issue at all.

Very anyhow comparison!!

Why will someone selling food items or goods under FMCG not state the price?

Even you Mr openbusiness that is defending them usually quote your prices for your 2020 cars. Why are you not following Innoson and CNN to be discrete about the prices of your cars in your thread?

Openbusiness:
Every serious seller knows you can't sell to everybody and tries to create their own niche in the market. You are complaining about N5k for one boxer, as if it is every boxer that is N200. There are N50 boxers and there are N500k boxers etc. It is left for you to cut your coat according to your cloth. Didn't you read the news yesterday on Nairaland that Davido bought a bicycle for N1,300,000? I'm sure you will call the seller a thief, but fail to realize that all products are not the same. If someone calls a N200 boxer for you N10,000, it doesn't matter, nobody put a gun to your head and forced you to buy, you still have the choice to walk away. So there's no issue at all.

You even stated the price of your dispenser in your signature. Obviously, you don't like the 'DM for prices' practice. It beats my imagination why you're leading them on.

Openbusiness:
Every serious seller knows you can't sell to everybody and tries to create their own niche in the market. You are complaining about N5k for one boxer, as if it is every boxer that is N200. There are N50 boxers and there are N500k boxers etc. It is left for you to cut your coat according to your cloth. Didn't you read the news yesterday on Nairaland that Davido bought a bicycle for N1,300,000? I'm sure you will call the seller a thief, but fail to realize that all products are not the same. If someone calls a N200 boxer for you N10,000, it doesn't matter, nobody put a gun to your head and forced you to buy, you still have the choice to walk away. So there's no issue at all.

Iyoooo cartel

5k for one piece of boxer? Where is sold? Even ambassador boxer cost 5k for 3 pieces. Why should a regular banana boxer that's S
Sold 1k per piece be sold for 5k because of dm for price?
Stop supporting illegality young man

Samakus:
Very anyhow comparison!!

Why will someone selling food items or goods under FMCG not state the price.

Even you Mr openbusiness that is defending them usually quote your prices for your 2020 cars. Why are you not following Innoson and CNN to be discrete about the prices of your carsin your thread?

if you read the post, I said supermarket retailers etc which FMCG falls under state prices but it is not applicable to every segment of trade. I state my price because as per my own marketing strategy. My thread says "CHEAP so and so", therefore I want the buyer to see that. So it is a marketing strategy peculiar to my situation and to my product, it is specific to me. It doesn't mean that another seller who doesn't state his own price or says DM for price or Request for Quote is a con artist or scammer. Go to the websites of many sellers outside FMCG retail, you won't see price there. Does it mean they are scammers or con artists? That is my point!

Your point 1 and 4 are invalid, while point 2 can be argued.

---

Point 1 happens mostly when people DM for price and not otherwise like you're trying to claim. There are times I contact people for the details of a product, only to back off when they Mentioned the price. If they had mentioned the price all along, I wouldn't have sent them any DM in the first place. So, on this note your point one is completely off point.

---

4. Not putting prices won't prevent people from copying your advert or write up. I have witnessed this several times where the only thing different between 2 or more sales website or advert is just the price.

In fact, people can DM you for price, and still go ahead to copy your advert and disappear.

So, saying asking people to DM will prevent impersonation is actually off point as well.

---

Also, your point 2 can be argued as it goes the other way as well. There are times I have interest in purchasing a product but won't DM the buyer to ask for price. Instead, I will simply go on Jumia and checkout their prices.

If you want serious buyers only why not just put your price along with the advert? If your prices are included, it will be easier for a buyer to decide whether to enter DM or not. If your price is okay for me I enter DM, if it's not okay I simply waka pass.

I saw an advert recently and the number of people asking for price that were asked to DM were more than 200. After replying over 200 DM and more than 100 are no longer interested nko? That means you just wasted valuable time. I'm sure that if the prices were attached, majority of those entering DM will be those actually ready to buy

Openbusiness:
if you read the post, I said supermarket retailers etc which FMCG falls under state prices but it is not applicable to every segment of trade. I state my price because as per my own marketing strategy. My thread says "CHEAP so and so", therefore I want the buyer to see that. So it is a marketing strategy peculiar to my situation and to my product, it is specific to me. It doesn't mean that another seller who doesn't state his own price or says DM for price or Request for Quote is a con artist or scammer. Go to the websites of many sellers outside FMCG retail, you won't see price there. Does it mean they are scammers or con artists? That is my point!

Point noted

bekanuel:
I saw an advert recently and the number of people asking for price that were asked to DM were more than 200. After replying over 200 DM and more than 100 are no longer interested nko? That means you just wasted valuable time. I'm sure that if the prices were attached, majority of those entering DM will be those actually ready to buy

I am a seller and I am a buyer. I buy things online too so I know how it is from both perspectives. The fact is any serious buyer will not have any issues with DM for price. A serious buyer that is READY to buy will not make a fuss about contacting the seller's inbox or phone etc, after all, you are not going to conclude the transaction on the public page, you will go to his private message to conclude. So it cannot be an issue for a serous READY buyer. Not every serious buyer is ready to buy, some are still window shopping around and then you have the time wasters too that really don't even have anything to buy, they're just making inquiries to catch fun etc. Majority, let's say 90% or even 95% of those who feel so angry or disgusted or vindictive towards a seller just because the seller put DM for Price (or request for quote or call for price) on his advert, trust me, they don't have anything to buy and won't buy anything even if the price was stated there. They will still look for another excuse to make. So that's the point I'm making. The seller is not automatically a scammer or con artist for using DM for price. If you check the article I wrote, there are several reasons, not just about filtering buyers from time wasters alone. 200 people entering your DM to chat with a seller gives seller the opportunity to communicate further to try to convert them to sales. Out of the 200 that enters his DM, if the seller is able to convert 20, it has still made a better record that relying on price alone to be the deciding factor from the beginning that makes buyer communicate with him or not. You see, for the general public, they are looking for CHEAP, but not everything cheap is of good quality or has the same type of performance or functions. For example, the bicycle Davido bought for N1.3m, I'm sure for that kind of a products, for example on Nairaland, if the seller puts price tag, many of the people commenting on the seller's thread will be negative comments and insults, that seller is a thief, or is it not bicycle, that they sell bicylce in their area for 20K etc, they are not concerned about the product quality or functions or build etc. They ruin his advert and push other prospective buyers away. And there are several other cases too, as well as several other reasons I didn't mention here. A seller will adopt a marketing strategy that he feels or thinks or knows will give him more sales. And DM for price is a marketing strategy. To call the seller a con artist or scammer just because of this is wrong or incorrect.

Ayemileto:
Your point 1 and 4 are invalid, while point 2 can be argued.

---

Point 1 happens mostly when people DM for price and not otherwise like you're trying to claim. There are times I contact people for the details of a product, only to back off when they Mentioned the price. If they had mentioned the price all along, I wouldn't have sent them any DM in the first place. So, on this note your point one is completely off point.

---

4. Not putting prices won't prevent people from copying your advert or write up. I have witnessed this several times where the only thing different between 2 or more sales website or advert is just the price.

In fact, people can DM you for price, and still go ahead to copy your advert and disappear.

So, saying asking people to DM will prevent impersonation is actually off point as well.

---

Also, your point 2 can be argued as it goes the other way as well. There are times I have interest in purchasing a product but won't DM the buyer to ask for price. Instead, I will simply go on Jumia and checkout their prices.

you are only vouching for yourself as per your own shopping character, but the seller has to deal with hundreds of different people coming their way. As per impersonation, maybe you are not a steady seller in the online space. Same way scammers impersonate people's social media profile and use it to scam unsuspecting public, is the same way they impersonate adverts and try to scam people with it. Why do you think some online platforms use watermarks on their products pictures? The more info the scammer has at his fingertips, the better his chance of trying create an alternative advert to impersonate it. The car dealer that sold car to Bobrisky uses DM for Price on Instagram. He sells high end luxury cars like pure water, week in week out he his making sales, cars of 20M, 60M, 75M etc. If Call for Price is an issue for serious buyers he won't be selling so much, if Call for Price discourages serious buyers like you claim, he won't be posting SOLD every now and then with picture and video testimonials of the Buyer's that bought from him. Call for Price is a marketing strategy, simple. Some sellers use it, some don't. Just because some sellers now use it doesn't make them con artist or scammers and it doesn't drive away serious buyers that are ready to buy. These type of buyers will make the contact and if it works for them, they will buy.

daddytime:
Lol

While your rejoinder was necessary and commendable, there are more grey areas you still didn't address in your very long post.

First off, I'm not sure the op of the initial post, not the subsequent respondents were in any way referring to the CNN's, BBC, Coscharis, or Innosons of this world.

He/she was referring to people selling stuff as small as a wrist bead.

In my opinion, the simplest and best way to curtail all you stated above as being the reason for the "DM for price", is simply to state the prices along with the advertorial and be sure to say those are your best prices. This way, you are almost certain that whoever was coming into your DM wasn't coming to start haggling any further about prices but to finalize the purchase.

The only reason I would have leaned towards in your argument would have been, " sellers request for the dm for prices because they do not want to clog up their advert space with unnecessary haggling, etc". This excuse would have been tenable.

Fixing your prices alongside your advert is the best way to filter out time-wasters and unserious buyers.

Very astute response

brb

xreal:
Your comparison is way irrelevant.

Seun stated his costs for advert; did he tell anyone to 'DM for price'?

What standard? Set by who?

Placing your price in adverts even saves you and your potential customer further headaches.

'DM for price' sounds as an insult sef.

That is Seun's own strategy. Go to Instablog on Instagram, will you see his advert price there? No! You have to DM for it and even when you DM, you won't get it, you have to submit your email and they will send you their rates. Does it mean Instablog is a con artist or a scammer or has bad intentions for asking DM for price? No! Does it mean Instablog is losing advert opportunities because of this? No! Instablog even runs more adverts than Nairaland, despite the fact that Instablog is even far more expensive than Nairaland. So it is a marketing strategy. Some sellers use it, some don't. You can't label sellers who use that strategy as con artists and you can't automatically equate it as low patronage. Just because you don't like it or it turns you off doesn't mean it so for everyone. Serious ready buyers will always patronize the sellers that sell what they want whether they put DM for price won't stop them from buying and won't make them say the seller is a con artist.

Let’s do a small poll (to get data) to help Business people and consumers under each other better.


Stop “DM for price” click like.

Display Price upfront click share.

daddytime:
Lol

While your rejoinder was necessary and commendable, there are more grey areas you still didn't address in your very long post.

First off, I'm not sure the op of the initial post, not the subsequent respondents were in any way referring to the CNN's, BBC, Coscharis, or Innosons of this world.

He/she was referring to people selling stuff as small as a wrist bead.

In my opinion, the simplest and best way to curtail all you stated above as being the reason for the "DM for price", is simply to state the prices along with the advertorial and be sure to say those are your best prices. This way, you are almost certain that whoever was coming into your DM wasn't coming to start haggling any further about prices but to finalize the purchase.

The only reason I would have leaned towards in your argument would have been, " sellers request for the dm for prices because they do not want to clog up their advert space with unnecessary haggling, etc". This excuse would have been tenable.

Fixing your prices alongside your advert is the best way to filter out time-wasters and unserious buyers.

Your normal Instagram ad won't tell a prospect all the benefits, specs, trims and aftersales services available that will justify high prices in some expensive items, so it's better for human to human interaction to convert prospects into buyers. Everyday items are an exception to this rule.

The problem with us in Nigeria is we abuse processes or for some, they don't know the reason they do somethings. They just know Mr A is saying check your DM on his ads. They too parrot check your DM on their a zobo drinks adverts.

And for others, they are just plain hustlers trying to make non savvy buyers pay top dollar for knockoffs.