It may seem counterproductive to keep the prices of your products hidden from users who haven’t logged into your online store. After all, you need to reveal the prices to convince people to make a purchase. So, why hide the prices from not logged in guests and customers?
Believe it or not, hiding prices can, in fact, be a good strategy – one that can lead to improved sales and ultimately higher profits. Thankfully, this is something you can now easily do using modern e-commerce tools such as our very own WooCommerce Wholesale Prices plugin.
In this article, we’ll discuss the advantages and disadvantages of hiding prices from website visitors who are not logged in. Then, we’ll show you how you can conceal prices on your online store (click here to jump to the tutorial). So let’s get started!
The 6 Major Benefits Of Hiding Prices From Guests Or Customers Who Are Not Logged In
Concealing your prices from not logged-in guests or customers in your store can provide you with various benefits.
Specifically, this strategy can:
1. Capture genuine leads
Concealing prices can generate curiosity among potential customers. Thus, you encourage them to register on your site to discover the prices of your items.
Then, using WooCommerce extensions such as Wholesale Lead Capture, you can easily determine whether or not a guest would make a good wholesale customer. In short, hiding prices from unregistered users can serve as a useful lead-capture tactic.
2. Build stronger customer relationships
When you hide prices, you encourage guests to reach out to you directly. This creates more opportunities for personalized interactions, which can enhance the customer experience.
For example, you can answer potential customers’ questions or give them advice about your products. You could highlight product benefits and features that prospects would have otherwise never considered. You could even promote similar products or special deals.
In addition, this strategy can convince pre-existing customers to log in, giving you the chance to offer them customer-exclusive special deals. Such promotions can boost customer satisfaction and loyalty.
All these efforts can lead to stronger customer relationships, increasing the likelihood of repeat purchases and positive word-of-mouth recommendations.
3. Allow pricing strategy flexibility
Since potential customers can’t see your prices, you’ll have greater autonomy when it comes to pricing your products based on market demand and supply. This can help your business stand out from competitors by offering unique high-quality products at a premium price point.
Similarly, hiding prices from unregistered users can give you an edge in pricing negotiations. Specifically, you’ll be able to discuss pricing that both you and the buyer will be happy with. You could even offer discounts and other benefits such as gift promotions, vouchers, and the like.
This is once again an area where today’s advanced e-commerce tools can help. For instance, our Wholesale Prices plugin for WooCommerce lets you categorize each customer according to their assigned role, then adjust your prices and discounts per role.
4. Prevent price fluctuation-induced shock
The market is in a constant state of flux, with factors such as inflation and taxes always increasing or decreasing prices.
Thankfully, concealing your prices can prevent customers from being taken aback by such sudden price changes, reducing the risk of negative buying sentiment and order cancellations.
5. Reduce pricing competition
Displaying prices on your product pages can give other businesses the opportunity to steal your prices. Worst case scenario, they could even use those stolen prices to compete directly against you.
For example, if a rival business sees how attractive your prices are, they could give their products identical prices. This could take some of your customers away from you. And if that rival lowers those prices, you could end up losing even more customers.
Thus, hiding prices ensures the competition stays unaware of your prices, preventing them from stealing them and attracting your customers.
6. Raise the value of the product
Typically, when a customer sees the price first, their brain immediately forms a connection between the price and the product’s value. However, if the first thing they see is a picture of the product, they could end up convinced that said product is of extremely high value.
You can combine this psychological trick with good negotiation skills and pricing flexibility to determine a price that suits both you and the buyer.
The 2 Drawbacks Of Hiding Prices
Of course, for all its benefits, hiding prices from unregistered users isn’t a strategy for everyone. For this reason, you should weigh the pros and cons of this strategy before employing it.
So, what are the disadvantages of hiding prices? Simply put, it can:
1. Increase cost and effort
Because your prices are secret, you can expect many prospects to contact you directly for answers. If your business is on the smaller side, or if you don’t have a team dedicated to answering these questions, you’re going to end up talking to a lot of people. You don’t even know if every consultation will result in a purchase, which means some of them could simply be a waste of your precious time.
As a result, you’ll have less time and energy to focus on other important business tasks. This will decrease your sales efficiency and increase the cost and effort required to acquire new customers. All these issues can negatively impact your sales, causing your revenue to plunge.
2. Discourage prospects from doing business with you
Hidden prices can serve as an inconvenience to some people.
In other words, it could become a barrier to entry that discourages guests from purchasing your stuff. These individuals could then walk away from your store in search of one that’s more upfront about their prices. Worst comes to worst, you could inadvertently send them right into your competitor’s arms!
How To Hide Prices From Unregistered Guests Or Customers (In 2 Easy Steps)
Concealing the prices of your products from unregistered guests or customers is simple. All you need is the WooCommerce e-commerce platform and our versatile WooCommerce extension Wholesale Prices.
Thus, for this tutorial, we’re going to assume you’ve already installed and activated WooCommerce and either the Free or Premium version of our Wholesale Prices plugin.
With that in mind, let’s jump into how to hide your products’ prices from users who are not logged in!
Step 1: Navigate to Wholesale Prices’ Price settings
Using your WordPress dashboard, head to WooCommerce > Settings, then click the Wholesale Prices tab. Alternatively, you can click Wholesale > Settings > Wholesale Prices Settings Page.
Then, under Wholesale Prices, select Price.
You’re now ready to adjust your online store’s Price settings.
Step 2: Modify the Price settings
Now, scroll down the page until you see the Hide Price and Add to Cart button option. To hide your prices from users who aren’t logged in, simply check the option’s checkbox.
Take note that having this checkbox checked also hides your Add to Cart buttons from website visitors. Therefore, in addition to not being able to see your prices, these visitors won’t be able to add items to their carts.
Once you’re done, click the Save Changes button to activate your new settings!
How it looks on the frontend
If you’re wondering how your settings will look to your website visitors, check out the images below!
As you can see, the products’ prices and Add to Cart buttons don’t appear for visitors who are not logged in.
In addition, the system displays a default message that says, “Log in to see prices,” a call-to-action encouraging pre-existing customers to log in and unregistered guests to register.
If you wish, you can change this text to something more appropriate to your needs. This brings us to the next (optional) step…
Step 3 (Optional): Customize your message to users who are not logged in
Immediately below the Hide Price and Add to Cart button option, you’ll find the Price and Add to Cart Replacement Message option and editor.
The editor allows you to write whatever message you desire. For example, you can write a call-to-action such as “Please log in to your wholesale account to see the prices.” Keep in mind that any new text you enter will replace the default “Log in to see prices” message.
This editor functions like a typical word processor. Thus, you can use it to change your text’s alignment, font size, font style, and more.
You can even use the Add Media button to insert images anywhere in the message.
Also, take note of the Visual and Text tabs. Visual gives you access to buttons that you can click to easily make changes to your text, making it ideal for most users. On the other hand, the Text tab is for those who know how to use HTML coding; as such, this option is perfect for those who desire more control over how they design their message’s appearance.
Don’t forget to save your work once you’re happy with your changes!
For more tips on how to modify such messages, check out our article “Wholesale Email Template: The Secret Weapon Of Successful Businesses.”
How it looks on the frontend
As mentioned above, any new text you write will replace the default “Log in to see prices” on the front end. Therefore, website visitors who are not logged in will see your new message instead, as illustrated below.
Conclusion
Concealing product prices from people who aren’t logged into your online store can benefit you as a wholesale store owner.
To recap, this strategy can help you:
- Capture genuine leads
- Build stronger customer relationships
- Allow pricing strategy flexibility
- Prevent price fluctuation-induced shock
- Reduce pricing competition
- Raise product value
On the downside, hiding prices can:
To hide your products’ prices from users who are not logged in, simply follow the outlined steps:
- Navigate to Wholesale Prices’ Price settings
- Modify the Price settings
- Optional: Customize your message to users who are not logged in
Do you have any questions about hiding prices from guests and customers who are not logged in? Please let us know in the comments section below!
