If you want to buy a product, engage the seller. If you don't have time to ask a simple question like 'how much"? then you are not a serious buyer. Most people complaining are just passers-by . Stop looking for something to buy when you don't have money . Why are you guys not complaining of landlord not putting the rent on the' house for rent' card? Has that stopped people from renting house?

pocohantas:


Very common with Instagram vendors.

What did you call them again??

"Instagram vendors", right?

Like who takes a "vendor" on any random social media account as a serious business concern? Not me.

You should know the rest. As far as I'm concerned, I would never take a random vendor operating without a proper website seriously or even trust such a "vendor" enough to want to do business with him/her.

It is what it is. This is how people get duped sometimes or you might not even get just exactly what it is that you have ordered.

I am surprised that people still don't know this. I mean "DM me for price" already reeks of sliminess and unseriousness.

The best thing is to do a moonwalk out of there and head over to the markt. Or better still, patronize the regular e-commerce sites where you can actually see the prices clearly stated.

My thoughts.

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

To cheat the least bargaining type

This is Instagram problem.

Even on vendors list their prices.

So annoying.... including those that will ask you 'what's your budget'... I hated dem all

pocohantas:


Why do they do this? What are they hiding? It is annoying, stressful and scares clients away. Maybe I am wrong and it actually works for them. Any of them here should please explain to me the idea behind this.

pocohantas:


Why do they do this? What are they hiding? It is annoying, stressful and scares clients away. Maybe I am wrong and it actually works for them. Any of them here should please explain to me the idea behind this.

/
It is the same way someone lists a car for N2m and trolls will say it costs only N800k in their area. It is bad market for everyone. They are afraid of competition.

/

pls DM for the reasons

pocohantas:


Why do they do this? What are they hiding? It is annoying, stressful and scares clients away. Maybe I am wrong and it actually works for them. Any of them here should please explain to me the idea behind this.

same here

Which is why it’s irritating

Sixfeetbelle:
This might sound crazy but I think it's sort of a mechanism for making maximum profit off unsuspecting customers. Going to their DM for price means A doesn't get told the same price or given the same discount as B.

Thats why i'll always patronize people like protein0 for gadgets and graceglory for tv.


The rest that make me waste my airtime or data to ask for price, Ogun will punish you.

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

Don't mind them. Imagine someone someone talking about supermarket as if the system is the same with open market system. Only unserious passers-by complain about "dm for price". Most of them will still ask you "how much last" in your DM even when you post your item with the price. so what's the noise about? Imagine complaining about businesses in Onitsha main market not putting a price on their products, when you can easily walk into shop rite.

Sixfeetbelle:
This might sound crazy but I think it's sort of a mechanism for making maximum profit off unsuspecting customers. Going to their DM for price means A doesn't get told the same price or given the same discount as B.

If you have never run a business online, please don't say what you don't know. Instagram vendors are not jumia. If you want to buy with price tagged to a product, go to jumia or konga. We have supermarkets and we have open markets. Every business has it's pattern.

I once bought a plot of land somewhere in Ibadan for 4 million and months after I decided to resell and I posted the advert on Facebook sponsored page and put the price at 5 million asking but I didn't put the price I had a lot of people asking and negotiating with me heavily suddenly a random lady came and ask for the price and I told her on the page and she messed up my deal instantly she said she lives around there and a plot of land is not more than 700k there ,I later engaged her privately and told her how I got the land and where the location is tho she apologized but everyone on the page diverted their attention to her and messed my deal up ,it's a lesson never to pricetag any of my markeats on social media .i later sold even higher

Rodwave:


Don't mind them. Imagine someone someone talking about supermarket as if the system is the same with open market system. Only unserious passers-by complain about "dm for price". Most of them will still ask you "how much last" in your DM even when you post your item with the price. so what's the noise about? Imagine complaining about businesses in Onitsha main market not putting a price on their products, when you can easily walk into shop rite.

very valid point. You are even talking how much last. The most annoying ones will still ask for price that has been clearly stated

True

damilotun:
I once bought a plot of land somewhere in Ibadan for 4 million and months after I decided to resell and I posted the advert on Facebook sponsored page and put the price at 5 million asking but I didn't put the price I had a lot of people asking and negotiating with me heavily suddenly a random lady came and ask for the price and I told her on the page and she messed up my deal instantly she said she lives around there and a plot of land is not more than 700k there ,I later engaged her privately and told her how I got the land and where the location is tho she apologized but everyone on the page diverted their attention to her and messed my deal up ,it's a lesson never to pricetag any of my markeats on social media .i later sold even higher

Lol.. You don't know Nigerians. If no go, you no go know

pocohantas:


I am sure it annoys me more o. That thing dey make me vex ehn! It isn’t transparent to me and I don’t do business with such people. I just want to be sure I am not judging them harshly. Maybe their intentions are noble.

The true reason behind it is just to sale one product for different price to customers.

If they sale a product of 1000 for customer A, they will still sale that same product for 2000 to customer B

aAK1:
very valid point. You are even talking how much last. The most annoying ones will still ask for price that has been clearly stated

Lol. I used to put price on my product but when I saw how useless people were messing up my page, I stopped. Now I only post a product without even writing 'dm for price' and serious buyers will even call me on phone to place their order.

Reason is because you tell them price on comment section or in public they will say OK....then come back three months later when there has been a change in price to point out you made it public here that the price is so so and so


Some will ask you all questions and all details only to tell you on comment section that he has a friend online that sells cheaper

Even when some make their prices known in public someone will say in comment section that its expensive that they sell cheaper



So sellers now ask you to DM them to show your seriousness to buy and to give you the price and any negotiations in private....


Some will even tell you that your price is unreasonably high that you shouldn't be selling things online....


Some will storm the comment section where you made your price public and be telling buyers they will give them a better price



Just what I have observed though

Whenever I see that phrase "DM for price" especially here in nairaland, I run with my legs hitting the back of my head. No be me dem go hushpuppi biko .

Well to My knowledge I guess it gets the customer more curious about the item of interest... Most customers that are aware of a product once they see the price tag tends to swap, but if unsure would like to know the price. So displayed price attracts and turnoff customers cause most won't like to bargain further. I guess dm me for price is more of a bargain ground... Buh make I no lie if na vendor were I know not I might most likely avoid

in my own judgment, they thieves and criminal, online marketing is the new biggest rip off right now thank God I learnt my lesson through Jumia and Konga, this certified criminals wants to become Jeff Bezos And Ali Baba over night.

I'm happy this is a topic for discuss.
The major reason is that they give customers different prices and rip off gullible customers.
Usually, Nigerians don't care about customers service. They believe in "chopping" now and forget about tomorrow. And I think it's because we have explosive population.
In other climes, you need serious and effective customers service to survive. You need them to come back again and again and to tell other people about you.

But here, we want to have 100% profit and sometimes, more. We are cunning and always want things fast. Our prices are not fixed across board, even PHCN has different tarriffs, nobody trust anybody so we bargain things ridiculously knowing that we can't trust anyone. People who should be honest also inflate their prices knowing that people won't trust their sincerity anyways.

This is a failed and ridiculous country and nobody is doing anything about anything to make it better.

As to the op, i don't bother, I pass. If you are serious and honest, put your prices there.

whatever it's is it not a good intension for the buyer. the seller is looking for who to cheat. I sees alot of them doing that here already.

once a seller says. give me me 10k than again bring 8k and how much you wan buy. I lose interest immediately.

i stop buying yam from a man who high the price and Come down gradually. that thing is getting old because of competition and many people don't want to get cheated. where I I buy yam the price are fix. you don't price it. the yam might even be more expensive a bit sometimes like if you bargin well from that old man. but I don't care I like the last cost and fix price and with that customers don't get been cheated.

people go to super market because of the price tag on the items. but not open market.

Many people here 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.

These are some of the reasons

me i don't have time for shalaye, i just tell people my price straight away, no time for ehn deduct for me nah it fixed man, if u ready to deal you accept

Once I see that shit, I am off. People that mostly do that don't have fixed price. They thrive on the naivety of potential customers.

Them Full Technology Thread, they are coming for you,

So how do you convince customers that your products has more value than your competitors?

post=94315769:
More about this Dm for Price issue,,
This is what we came about some weeks ago.....

A few days ago, I saw some locally handcrafted sandals being promoted on social media that caught my attention because of how beautiful and distinctive they were. I was pleasantly surprised.

So, when I saw a style that had somewhat unique detail and finishes, I was very interested and immediately posted a comment under the picture.

“Love these! How much are they?”

Two days later, when I’d almost forgotten them, I got a notification of a reply.

“Please DM for price.”

For those who don’t know, on social media, ‘DM’ means direct message and is the typical way to ask someone to contact you privately.
The delay and their response made me lose interest entirely, so I didn’t bother to ‘DM for price’. And yes, I found it a bother.

What’s most troubling is that this secrecy about price is not restricted to local sandal makers, but is a widespread practice.
Many companies with pages on Instagram and Facebook routinely post pictures without pricing or proper descriptions for a wide range of items, including clothing, shoes, bags, art, accessories, home decor, furniture, hair, skin care products, and even food, and instead ask that you ‘DM for prices’ if interested.

PRICE SECRECY

It is a critical teachable moment for business owners and consumers, particularly in this digital age where e-commerce, effective online communication and customer engagement are key pillars of the future of retail.

Many businesses will either see explosive business growth or devastating stagnation as they navigate the next few years. As a result, I posed the following question on social media:

Why should a customer DM for the price of a product you posted online?
Are you doing business, or keeping a secret?


I then explained key business principles behind transparency, which I will outline shortly.

My post triggered an avalanche of responses. I knew that several consumers had similar sentiments, but when over 1,000 people engaged me on Instagram alone, I was taken aback.

The responses from Facebook and Twitter were also incredible.
People were so vocal and passionate, it was clear I had struck a nerve for many.

I could barely keep up with the hundreds of comments bemoaning this practice of businesses withholding prices and asking customers to either send a private message, call for details, or, worst of all, visit the location.
Users even called out offending companies, tagging them in the comments and insisting they ‘read and learn’.

TRANSPARENCY IS THE BEST POLICY

Although some entrepreneurs had seemingly good reasons for withholding prices from the public, I believe many are losing money and damaging their brands in the process. Here’s why:

Customers love transparency.
They are less trusting of companies that hide prices and may feel that the business is shady and will increase the quoted amount if it perceives the customer can afford to pay more.

Customers like control and real-time information.
A basic customer-service principle is that customers like to feel and be in control.
They’ve become accustomed to real time information in the digital space.
They may also resent being asked to take several actions or steps based on company policies that appear mindless or don’t serve them.

Customers don’t need complexity or extra work. Businesses should make their customers’ lives easier at every opportunity.
In this highly competitive digital space, customers have many choices and lead complex lives.
The easier it is for a customer to buy, the more likely it is they will if they perceive utility.

Stop competing on price.
Compete instead on unique value as competing on price is almost always a race to the bottom.

It’s unproductive.
It can’t be the best use of a business’ time and resources to hide prices then respond to a wide net of people individually with the same answer ­ DM for price

they want to sell the same items to different people at different prices depends who DM them