Some prices change by the afternoon. A static page can't say so.
Daily rates, seasonal pricing, what is left today. The information customers most want is what a website is worst at holding.
Some businesses have a price list. Others have a price that depends on today.
What the fish cost this morning. How busy the week is. What is left at four in the afternoon. Whether it is a bank holiday.
If that is you, a normal website is a poor fit, and it is not your fault. A web page is built to sit still.
The three bad options
Most businesses end up in one of these, and all three cost something.
Publish a price and let it go stale. Now you are arguing with someone holding a screenshot of last year's page. Nobody wins that.
Publish nothing. Safe, and it pushes every single question to the phone. You answer the same thing forty times a week.
Update it by hand every morning. Works for about three weeks. Then a busy day happens and it quietly stops, usually without anyone noticing.
Separate what moves from what does not
This is the first real step, and it is free.
Most businesses that think everything changes find that most of it does not. Your call-out fee is the same all year. Your hourly rate has not moved since March. The structure of your pricing is stable even when the final number is not.
Publish the stable parts properly. That is usually eighty per cent of what people wanted to know.
For the part that really does move
Three honest approaches.
Give a range and name what moves it. "Between £40 and £70 depending on the day and how many." Never out of date, because a range absorbs change.
Date it. "Prices as of Monday." Now an old number is information rather than a broken promise.
Let it be asked rather than published. The page stays general, and something answers the specific question from what is true now.
That third one is the case for the kind of thing we build. It is also the only one that costs money, so try the first two first. For a lot of businesses a range and a date is the whole answer.
Say why it changes
People are far more relaxed about a moving price than owners expect, as long as they understand the reason.
"Fish prices change with the market, so we price on the day" is completely normal. Nobody objects to that.
A price that changes with no explanation feels like being tested. The same price with a reason attached feels fair. Same number, opposite reaction.
The one thing not to do
Do not leave an old number up because taking it down feels like a step backwards.
A wrong price is worse than no price. It costs you an argument, and it costs you trust with someone who was ready to buy.
Written by the team at hailera — we help small businesses answer customer questions without being there.