Rates on website...yay or nay

[DairyGirl]

A little birdie told me today that someone "in the family" that owns the business will be taking over the operation of our website. We currently do not have our rates on the website, and it took a long time and a lot of convincing to get the owner to agree to that. Now, this new person thinks they should be on there. I am against it, as is our other location. I like the freedom to raise rates on vacant units that I have several of, and that people are interested in renting. I can't do that if my website says something different. It also takes away from actually talking to someone and getting an idea of what size they actually need (it also weeds out the "I'm being evicted and need a unit today" folks). I have a lot of people that try to rent based on price alone, and when you tell them they won't fit the contents of a 2-3 bedroom house into a 10x10 (because that's what they can afford), they have to re-think their options. I have a feeling I will lose this battle, and will have to try to make the best of it.

[KrisinCali]

We have our rates on the website, and if we change them on Sitelink it's automatically reflected on the website so there's no issues.

[DairyGirl]

Oh that's interesting. How do you do that?

[SimplySpace]

I personally think you should list your prices online. Not only has it helped us a ton with reservations and our waitlist, but it all but assures you that anyone that is contacting you from your website is okay with your pricing.

As for your website; you should be able to link your pricing to your software so it'll update online as you update in your software.

[AngelaESSTX]

I keep all of my available units and prices excluded from our website. I do this mostly to keep other facilities, especially the ones we've had issues with, from accessing them. We don't do online rentals and are pretty full so we don't want online reservations that could cause problems with availability. If you have the freedom that fluctuate your pricing, I wouldn't list them online either.

[SimplySpace]

" I do this mostly to keep other facilities, especially the ones we've had issues with, from accessing them."

We share our pricing with the other facilities so it's not an issue for us. I actually welcome the competition, just means we can keep raising rates too

[MamaDuke]

I have mine online, I always have. I use push rate pricing in Sitelink, so it will automatically raise prices as available units are rented based on the criteria I have set up. And it updates the web rates in real time with no extra work from me.

Also, at least in my area, if rates weren't published, we wouldn't get the business. People would move on to the next website.

[DairyGirl]

I just prefer having a conversation with people on the phone. You get a better "feel" for things, if you know what I mean. Otherwise, someone sees the price for a 5x10, because that's what's in their budget, and they end up trying to cram a uhaul full of stuff in before they realize it's too small. I like to have control of some things.

[KrisinCali]

Oh that's interesting. How do you do that?

Oh, you're asking the wrong person. I only know that they're linked via Sitelink. But QuikStor did it as well.

[MamaDuke]

Oh that's interesting. How do you do that?

It's all set up and linked from here in CCC.

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[helenatim]

I just prefer having a conversation with people on the phone. You get a better "feel" for things, if you know what I mean. Otherwise, someone sees the price for a 5x10, because that's what's in their budget, and they end up trying to cram a uhaul full of stuff in before they realize it's too small. I like to have control of some things.

I get what you are saying here and we have done it that way. At this point, I think having your prices visible on the website and allowing online rentals gets you better clients. If they have a smart phone and a credit card, they are probably running their lives pretty well.
Most websites are linked to your management software and allow for pricing based on availability of units or allow you to change prices on the fly. Just last night we raised nearly all street rates and it showed on the website within 5 minutes.
Also, shoppers are informed and they want to know price without any hassle. Then they can decide if the value is there.

At this moment I have a guy calling to rent a unit, pay cash, and store his truck that doesn't run in it. So many red flags in one person...

[Storman]

I've never had rates on my website. I don't want the people whom are merely shopping price and not value. Rates do not equal value. I've been at 95%+ occupancy for 30 years. All markets are different, this strategy has worked well for me. I've developed a pretty good sense of the type of customer I'm looking for, and a short conversation usually gives me all the info I need to make a determination as to whether or not they'll be a good fit here.

I'm sure I've missed out on some great customers over the years, but I'm also sure I've avoided some sticky issues too.

My facility is probably 40% occupied by people whom have had a terrible experience at another local facility. I call them my storage refugees. They've either been robbed, been treated poorly by a never ending revolving door of short term managers, had rates adjusted sky high over and over, felt unsafe, or otherwise jerked around. For many of them, they mistakenly shopped price...... teaser price, and it has ended up costing them much more in the long run.

I have 80 5 star Yelp reviews, 33 5 star Google reviews. I believe I offer the cleanest, safest most secure facility in the area, along with 2 clean customer restrooms, a free truck for qualifying sizes, liberal gate hours, no added fees or undisclosed "insurance costs", an onsite owner/manager of 35 years, and a 12 month rate guarantee. My closing rate if I talk to the person on the phone (and I want them as a customer) is probably 80%. My advertising budget is $0. I pay nothing to anybody for anything advertising related. (Edit: I pay a yearly fee for the website hosting, I think it's $200)

All markets are different, but this has been proven to work for me in my market.

[DairyGirl]

Thanks for responses everyone. I'm sure I'll find out more later, but I'm going to fight to not have them on the website.

[T_Champeau]

I think, as always it varies on your competition and market. We advertise prices on our website, which helps show transparency to customers. Honestly, it's a bit of a red flag in our area when someone doesn't list the price on their website. But that's our area which has lots of options. Also, even if people come in person how do you stop them taking whatever fits their budget better and not their stuff?

On the other hand, even if they've been on our website they also want verbal confirmation when coming in. If they seem like a good fit I might knock off some of the security deposit, but that's at my digression. If they seem like a bad fit I up the sec. deposit because we don't talk about that on the website so I have flexibility. Plus, there's the my bad we just sold the last unit of that size, so sorry route.

That being said, raising prices across all platforms takes me maybe 20 minutes tops? I manage our website so all I have to do is update it myself (along with FB & google). However, if it's a lengthy process for you then yeah, it would def. be a pain in the butt and could even lose you guys money. I guess it comes not so much if you should post prices but rather how the website will be run, managed and how quickly it can be updated. If it can't keep up with how you do business then yeah, makes sense not to post.

The compromise you could offer is to give a range instead of a hard price? A lot of the times websites will advertise "Starting At" $$ which can give you the flexibility you want.

[AngelaESSTX]

" I do this mostly to keep other facilities, especially the ones we've had issues with, from accessing them."

We share our pricing with the other facilities so it's not an issue for us. I actually welcome the competition, just means we can keep raising rates too

I share mine with the only other facility that I recommend people to and she refers people here. When I say I've had issues with other places, I mean issues! If they want my prices, they're gonna have to work for them