Richards at Bathroom and Kitchen Planet goes into some detail to explain his thinking: “We price the individual bathroom products for three main reasons. Skelcher at Rossendale Interiors likes customers to be able to wander around by themselves and says it’s good “to give them an idea of price”. You also may lose customers frightened off by a price that may well include elements they wouldn’t want or need.” Gainsborough Kitchens director Alex Jenman tells me: “The advantage is that you can perhaps better price qualify customers at an early stage, so you’re less likely to waste time doing an expensive design for someone without the budget. Legalities aside, though, what are the benefits and drawbacks of display pricing in your showroom? So it could be argued that as generally a complete kitchen or bathroom is sold, rather than the individual elements, and that installation prices are unique to each project, displays are more of a ‘sample of work’ rather than seeking to sell the component parts. “One drawback is that it can make it very easy for people to make note of the products and price-match online” There are exceptions to this general rule about displayed pricing though, and these include products comprising an assortment of different items sold in a single package and products supplied in the course of providing a service. So how does this leave KBB retailers that don’t currently do this? Retail sales manager at Rossendale Interiors, Mike Skelcher, says that his use of a finance offering tips his hand: “I price displays, but mainly to help customers see what monthly payment they’d be looking at to buy on finance.”Īs an alternative to labelling each display price, specialist KBB accountancy advisor Kevin Bannister tells me: “I’ve known clients that will have sections of their showrooms at different price points (entry, mid-range and top end) so that they can guide customers into the area that best fits their budget.” Not legally bindingĪnd for those of you worried about making a mistake in your display prices, Bannister points out that “when you display a price, it is known legally as an ‘invitation to treat’, and that figure isn’t actually legally binding, so the customer can’t force you to sell it at that price”.īut, despite retailers seeming to think they have a choice in the matter, according to Trading Standards, the law states that product prices in shops should be made clear on or placed near to the product for sale. Now the frequency of these has reduced, we feel far more comfortable with reinstating this”. On the other hand, Elizabeth Pantling-Jones, a director at Lima Kitchens in Milton Keynes, explains why she doesn’t: “We have always previously priced our displays, but haven’t done our new ones yet as it’s been difficult to keep on top of all of the price rises recently, so we have taken many prices off. Scott Richards, showroom manager at Bathroom and Kitchen Planet in Stirling, gets the discussion started, saying that “in bathrooms we quote each bay with each product priced separately”. So, with a comfortable majority not showing prices, I spoke to several retailers to get their thoughts. Rather surprisingly, more than three-quarters (78%) of respondents answered no, 12% said yes and that items were priced individually, while 7% said yes and that the overall price of the display was shown. I asked if their showroom displays had pricing signs. To kick off, I carried out a poll of KBB retailers on LinkedIn to get a flavour of where we are at on these two topics. So, holding that thought for a moment, this month I decided to investigate visible pricing in our industry, with a particular focus on showroom displays and quotes, to see how we present prices to our customers. If we were to rerun the game show, but ask contestants to put a price on KBB designs/displays, it would be carnage, with guesses probably tens of thousands of pounds out. In fact, on average, it is at least 10 years between revamps in the UK, so no wonder the general public is in the dark about what they cost. Well, people don’t shop for kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms every week, month, or even year. So what has this got to do with our industry? Contestants had to guess the retail price of a variety of everyday items and the one with the closest bid, without exceeding the price of the item, went through to the next round. The game show The Price is Right was iconic Saturday evening viewing in the Eighties.
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