The ever so common ‘Sort by price’ feature is lazy and easy.
Sorting by price is the dominant way that shopping now happens. The cheapest airline ticket or widget or freelancer comes up first, and most people just click and buy.
It’s a great shortcut for a programmer, of course, because price is a number—and it’s easy.
Alphabetical could work even more easily, but it seems less relevant (especially if you’re a fan of Zappos or Zima).
However there’s still a problem: just because it’s easy, it doesn’t mean it’s as useful as it appears.
It’s lazy for the consumer. If you can’t take the time to learn about your options, about quality, about side effects, then it seems like buying the cheapest is the way to go—”they’re all the same anyways”—we think.
And it’s easy for the producer. Nothing is easier to improve than price. It takes no nuance, no long-term thinking, no concern about externalities. Just become more brutal with your suppliers and customers, and cut every corner you can. And then blame the system.
It makes lazy merchandisers and buyers. They don’t have to spend much time figuring out if something is truly better, they are merely focused on price, regardless of what it might cost their community in the long run.
We’re all part of that system, and if we’re not happy with the way we’re treated, maybe we ought to think about the system we’ve permitted to drive those changes.
With this system we have the mindset to go cheap and just work harder. But what if we could work smarter not harder?
What would happen if we insisted on ‘sort by value’ instead of price?
What if the airline search engines returned results sorted by a score that combined travel time, aircraft quality, reliability, customer service, price and a few other factors? How would that change the experience of flying?
This extends far beyond air travel. We understand that it makes no sense to hire someone merely because they charge the cheapest wage. We shouldn’t pick a book or a movie or a restaurant simply because it costs the least.
There are differences, and sometimes, those differences are worth what they cost.
‘Worth it’ is a fine goal.
What if, before we rushed to sort, we decided what something was worth first?
Low price is the last refuge of the marketer who doesn’t care enough to build something worth paying for. Really, in your experience, how often is the cheapest choice the best choice?
Our Stairs and Buckets training video will help you deliver the worth of long-term life insurance. Don’t settle based on price and don’t let your team or your customers as well! Understanding the value of what you can offer will help you work smarter instead of harder as you educate your customers, empower your team and improve sales.
