Are You Competing on Price When You Should Be Competing on Experience?

Let’s be honest, price is important.

If you’re running a trade counter, you need to be competitive. Tradespeople know their prices, they know what things should cost, and they’re not going to pay £20 more for something they can get down the road for £15.

But there comes a point where constantly trying to be cheaper isn’t really a strategy.

Because if price is the main reason your customers use you, what happens when someone else is cheaper?

They go somewhere else.

I think there’s a lot to be said for looking at the experience you give customers instead.

How easy is it to park? How quickly can someone get served? Do your staff actually know what they’re talking about? Can a customer get an answer without being passed from one person to another?

These things sound pretty basic, but they make a massive difference when you’re a tradesperson trying to get what you need and get back to the job.

If I’m a plumber and I know I can walk into a particular merchant, get what I need quickly, have a chat with someone who knows their stuff and be back in the van ten minutes later, I’m probably going to keep going back.

Even if another merchant is a couple of pounds cheaper.

And that’s the point.

You don’t always need to be the cheapest if you can be the easiest to deal with.

There are loads of things a trade counter can do to improve the customer experience, and most of them don’t require huge amounts of money.

Keep the counter organised. Make collections quick. Keep customers informed. Have staff who are helpful. Remember your regulars. Make it easy for people to do business with you.

None of that is particularly revolutionary.

But when you’re competing with other merchants selling many of the same products, sometimes the little things are what make the difference.

So perhaps the question isn’t always:

“How can we make our prices lower?”

Maybe it should be:

“How can we make coming here a better experience?”

Because a good price might get someone through the door.

A good experience might keep them coming back.