Why do builder's merchants hide their prices behind 'POA' and make you 'ring for a quote'?

GervisLooper

I find that such a childish psychological trick. As if hiding it will suddenly make you buy it when you speak to them on the phone.

Also it makes more pointless work for them I presume as they have to write up quotes for everything which could otherwise be calculated by the user online.

Tucosalamanca

When items are POA, it's generally because they're non-stock items (that need to have the current price checked) or items that have limited availability, in which case they want to confirm availability/delivery lead times before agreeing an order.

It's not some kind of psychological trick, merchants have far better things to do than answer enquiries from members of the public (many of whom will never make a purchase).

Telephone is a good way of stopping timewasters filling their inboxes with 'enquiries'.

Builders merchants generally have relationships with established clients, they're not particularly interested in passing trade (builders working out of area for example) and have even less time for members of the public. 

Truth be told, they're not interested in whether you buy it or not....

Section62

GervisLooper said:

I find that such a childish psychological trick....

In addition to Tucosalamanca's points, POA is also often applied to materials where there can be rapid price fluctuations due to commodity or energy prices.  E.g. lead, copper, or cement or glass etc.

Unlikely to be a psychological trick, although if it were one it would more likely be targeted against other traders rather than customers (i.e. not publishing prices so a competitor can't undercut them by a few pence/pounds)

Bradden

Pricing in most merchants is pretty fluid. The risk is listing a price ma6y lose sales. They wouldn't want to put the price of a single item when you could be buying hundreds... or vice versa.

FreeBear

Section62 said:

GervisLooper said:

I find that such a childish psychological trick....

In addition to Tucosalamanca's points, POA is also often applied to materials where there can be rapid price fluctuations due to commodity or energy prices.  E.g. lead, copper, or cement or glass etc.

Builders merchants also have a range of discounts for high spend regular customers. Even for us small spenders, prices can be surprisingly flexible.

Cheslea2010

It usually works in the customers favour. Often better to check so that you are made aware of any promotions at the time as it could save you money.  A lot of builders merchants now drop ship products from other companies, so geographical pricing will also be a factor.

Mistral001

This is not a trick or childish, it is just good business sense.  As well as not wanting time-wasters, as suggested above, they do not want their competitors to see their prices. 

GervisLooper

Mistral001 said:

This is not a trick or childish, it is just good business sense.  As well as not wanting time-wasters, as suggested above, they do not want their competitors to see their prices. 

That doesn't make sense. As if their competitors are unable to ring the phone and ask like anyone else.

Section62

GervisLooper said:

Mistral001 said:

This is not a trick or childish, it is just good business sense.  As well as not wanting time-wasters, as suggested above, they do not want their competitors to see their prices. 

That doesn't make sense. As if their competitors are unable to ring the phone and ask like anyone else.

Of course they can.  But whereas the competitors could scrape hundreds if not thousands of prices from a company's website using automated processes, doing so by phone involves much more work - and if a "customer" regularly phones up asking for prices on multiple different items it won't take long for them to get sussed out (especially if they always call from a withheld number).

movilogo

Unlike items sold in Amazon et al, these items don't have millions of customers. These companies also don't have large IT teams to update prices regularly - depending on what their competitors are doing. So they put POA & not to bother with update prices in websites. 

Yes it is a hassle for consumers but one can always create an Excel and compile prices from different vendors to compare.