Are prices shown in search results good for e-commerce sites?

[fablau]

Hello here.

I own an e-commerce website (virtualsheetmusic.com) and with the fact we have implemented structured data for our product pages,  now our search results on Google appear with pricing information whereas most of our competitors don't have that information displayed (yet).

I am wondering: Do you think is that good? What side effects could that cause? Less CTR? Less bounce rate? Less traffic?

Any thoughts on this issue are very welcome.

Thanks!

[fablau]

Thank you guys, I agree with you and I think I have to remove the prices from the structured data. Our prices are not really "lower" than competition because our music is very high quality, and quality must be paid. So, I think it is not good for us to have pricing display, and you gave me confirmation to this doubt.

Now: do you think it is easy to remove the pricing from Google results just as removing the structured information from our product pages? Is there any other way (or additional way) to tell Google "We don't want you to show our prices?". I also read that Google may associate natural search results with Merchant Center datafeed (we are on there), and if that's the case how to solve it?

Thank you again.

[eyepaq]

Hi,

If you are the only one that has the prices displayed I think no matter the position of the prices vs competition you will always be the second choice as far as click.

Visitors will see, check the other results to see the prices there and if yours is cheeper they might get back to you. But this can be, in some cases, a good strategy - again if the prices are "right".

Just my 2c.

[Nick_Ker]

It really depends on if your prices are lower than most - and if you are able to make sure you are the at least close to the lowest on price.

If your prices aren't low enough, click through would probably be lower. If your prices are obviously low, it could reduce the time to purchase down to just a few clicks in one visit if the customer gets to the page from the SERP, likes what they see, and all goes well in the checkout process. The downside is that a really thrifty shopper will make a note of your price and keep shopping others who may end up getting the sale if the customer gets to their site and finds a lower price, or something else that makes them want to buy - like free shipping.

In my opinion, if you can't frequently track your pricing on all products compared to all competitors who rank within the first couple of pages of results, you are better off having some enticing things in the meta description or titles. Like: "Red Widgets - Lowest Prices Guaranteed with Free Shipping" (if you do price matching).

[bjs2010]

Hi,

Interesting question which I have considered in the past also.

I think that so long as your prices are competitve, it is a good idea - depending on how you are pricing your products compared to the competition.

One thing to be aware of though, for example, I use Magento, and I know that the structured data in our setup does not always take the "final price", eg, it takes the regular price - we run discounts on most of our products, and getting it to display the "final price" would be important in my opinion - so that your lowest price is always displayed as opposed to your regular price.

There can be of course a downside - customer's see your price and make a decision immediately not to even visit the site - sometimes less is more.

Hope that helps.