We went out to buy a new couch today, which its FAR down on my list of favorite things to do on a sunday afternoon. I always find furniture shopping to be a harrowing experience, especially when dealing with commissioned sales people hovering like vultures.
Currently we have two big ultra-modern leather couches in our media room. We have been thinking that they’re a bit too stiff, a bit too cold. Basically, you have to be a contortionist to perform any kind of cuddling while watching a movie…so…it was time for a new couch.
In the first store we stopped at, we immediately saw a modular sofa set that was perfect…it had modern leather-clad frame but big comfy fabric cushions, and throw pillows instead of stiff leather cushions for the back…it was, in short, the ideal couch for us; especially since we were able to buy separate pieces and put them together in the arrangement we wanted (I love modular furniture). So, long story short, after we checked the dimensions, we were a firm sale (probably the easiest sale our salesman got all day).
Now, when we were checking out and paying for the sofa, the salesman did something that got me thinking: He didn’t up-sell us. He didn’t even TRY to up-sell us into add-ons, warranties, teflon stain-proofing, etc etc. No, he didn’t up-sell us, because he just put it all on the bill anyways without even asking us. Basically, he breezed over the itemized list on the bill and drew our attention directly to the total and said, “so that will be $____ dollars.” Now, I had been calculating the whole thing in my head, so I knew what to expect in terms of a final total. When I heard his total, I said, “Let me see that bill….O.K, you’ve put Teflon on here for 25.99 per module, coming to 181.00.” and he says, “Oh you want that, you definitely want that. I put it on there because you’d be crazy not to want that.” And Randy, standing next to me, said “Oh yeah, let’s get that! You’re always spilling your wine!” (sadly, it’s true). So I went on down the bill to the next item, “Now, whats this 125.00 steel base item?” and the salesman says “Well, of course, you want the steel base right? It looks a lot better than the wood. Everyone is going steel nowadays.” And Randy was there saying “Oh yeah! I love that style.” So, we got the steel base, too….
This debacle went on, item by item, until I was completely defeated and had no choice but to accept every add-on item on that bill except for one thing: the rug underlay (no joke, that was on the bill…) After we paid up and left – my wallet hurting alot more than I expected it too – I said, “We certainly bought alot more than we bargained for”, and Randy replied, “Well we knew it was going to be expensive, and besides, we didn’t end up paying as much as he initially tried to bill us.”
And there it was, the brilliance of not up-selling your customers. We never even saw what the price would have been without all those add-ons, we only saw the total price with all the add-ons included. The psychology of the situation is that once a customer sees an expensive base price, their wallet tightens up and they don’t want to spend anything more, even if it is just 25.99 per module for teflon coating, or 125.00 for a steel base.
Think about what would be more difficult: showing your customer a total price and then convincing them to spend more on upgrades? or showing a customer an upgraded price and letting them remove what they don’t really want? The answer is obvious. Chances are, the latter method will tend to get more customers to spend money on upgrades than the former method.
This lesson applies to the web as well, especially if you are marketing any kind of web-application. If you are selling something that has upgrades, why not include the upgrades automatically at checkout? It’s a win-win situation: The customer always feels better when they see their total price decrease as they customize their purchase to their needs, and chances are you’ll sell more upgrades than usual.
Great example of anchoring! And I’d add a second axiom to your list… ‘never take your girlfriend to the sales counter with you – they’ll just be the second salesperson’.
Maybe I’m an oddball, but if I told someone I wanted a couch and they just assumed that I wanted all of those other things, I would leave the store and buy somewhere else. In fact, I’ve done it before. If someone wants to try to upsell me, that’s fine, but I despise the, “Oh, you’ll definitely want this and this and this” approach.
My wife was in the furniture biz for the better part of 20 years. Did your stain guard policy come with a guarantee that if the sofa was stained anyway a replacement would be made? Then your wine spilling habit may get you the better end of the deal.
But a decently run store will keep records, and if you keep calling them because you’re the 21st century’s Foster Brooks eventually they will tell you to get lost.
My wife put it this way: “The first time is an accident. The second time is abuse”.
Yes, stain guards often fail. You don’t think those things are applied by rocket scientists, do you?
BTW, when you spend a lot of money, you call it a sofa. When you don’t, its a couch. I think you bought a sofa.
Nice post – but sometimes you just want to get that initial sale to make them a customer. Then you can upsell afterward. It’s much easier to sell to customers who have purchased in the past.
I studied this concept in undergrad Psychology, it’s called anchoring. Even when people know the first number given to them is completely arbitrary, they adjust it until it is reasonable, and then agree to that number.
The example we were given is as follows:
Suppose I spin a number-wheel, and it comes up pointing to 65. Then I ask: Do you think the percentage of African countries in the UN is above or below this number? (and then) What do you think is the percentage of African countries in the UN?
The results found were that the estimate of subjects who saw the wheel show 65 was 45%, while the estimate of subjects who saw 10 was 25% (on average).