Three Reasons to Let Customers Name Their Price

Since I developed the WooCommerce Name Your Price plugin back in 2012, entrepreneurs have used it to sell all kinds of products all around the world! But over the years, one question I’ve gotten about my plugin is why a business would ever let a customer decide what to pay!

I’m also a business owner, so I understand the initial hesitation. After all the work you’ve put in building your business, developing your product, and setting your site up to sell, letting someone else decide what that’s worth could sound like a tough pill to swallow.

And yet, the Name Your Price plugin is by far my best-selling product. Year after year, thousands of business owners have purchased Name Your Price and put it to work for them in a range of different ways – including a few uses I never even thought of when I built it! 

What many sellers have figured out is that letting shoppers pay what they want can be a very powerful sales and marketing tool that helps broaden their shopper base and deepen their customer relationships. 

A few main advantages of using Name Your Price are:

1. Supporting new customer acquisition
2. Deepening shopper trust
3. And even increasing what customers pay for your product. 

Here’s how my customers have seen this work.

1. Acquire New Customers

You run a business: you already know that promotional pricing is a tried-and-true marketing tactic to acquire new customers. Lower the barrier to a new customer’s experience with your product, and you’ll encourage trial. 

But what you don’t know, especially in the early stages of your business or when introducing a new item, is what it’s going to take to get that first trial. Will it be 10…15…30% off? 

Name Your Price cuts out the guesswork and lets the customer tell you what it’s going to take to put your product in their hands. (So not only are you broadening your audience; you’re getting some valuable consumer research at the same time!) 

Besides using this as a business tactic, it’s also a way to democratize the sale of your products, making items available to people at the price they’re able to pay. I’d say that’s very in keeping with WordPress and WooCommerce’s mission to democratize publishing and e-commerce year-round, but I think there’s an added benefit right now. No getting around it: lots of businesses are going to have a hard time pitching their products in, say…the middle of a global pandemic. But Name Your Price can actually help sellers continue to grow their business in a compassionate, ethical way. 

Plus, it’s eminently marketable: it’s a simple, straightforward hook for social media or an email campaign. Thankfully, that also makes it easy for happy customers to share it with others and build your brand’s reputation with highly coveted user-generated content! Because the offer is easy to market, you’ll likely encourage greater trial to a broader audience for no additional marketing effort or spend.

Whatever your specific motivation might be, the Name Your Price plugin helps more customers get to know your brand.

2. Deepen Shopper Trust

Letting customers pay what they want can be one of the quickest and easiest ways to deepen trust with your shoppers. Shoppers see that you’re confident in your product and that you know your customer will see the same value. They also see that you’re extending your trust in them to pay, in good faith, what the product is worth to them. 

That simple exchange builds rapport quickly, which gives shoppers another reason, besides how much they appreciate your product, to come back with confidence in you as a seller, ultimately encouraging repeat purchases and trial of additional products on your site.

3. Increase What Customers Pay 

You’re always able to set the minimum price that you want to accept in a given transaction with Name Your Price. (Plus, you decide whether to make that minimum visible to the customer on screen.)

But customers may actually surprise you by paying more than you anticipated. In one recent review, one Name Your Price customer wrote: 

“After using Name Your Price for about 6 months, customers, on average, have paid about double the minimum price. That’s incremental revenue that we wouldn’t have otherwise captured, which makes this product well worth it!”

As a tool and a tactic, the Name Your Price plugin is a very modest expense that will probably pay for itself quite quickly. But, in addition to bonus revenue on selected products, what you learn from using Name Your Price might also inform pricing strategy for other products, opening the door to increased revenue on other items.

Name Your Price is also a great way to capture revenue that would otherwise have been lost: overstocks, irregular items, test batches, or anything you need to move quickly. 

Why Name Your Price, Why Now?

Besides the evergreen advantages of Name Your Price and its ability to support sales during COVID-19, Name Your Price version 3.0 also includes a variety of improved features:

• Upgraded user experience: Subtle but thoughtful changes produce a more intuitive layout, reducing friction, removing obstacles on the path to purchase, and helping to streamline sales.
• Enhanced accessibility: Name Your Price is now fully accessible to users of screen readers, expanding your audience to sight-impaired customers.
• Range of compatibility with other plugins: for recurring subscriptions, Mix and Match products, Product Bundles, Composite Products, and more, improvements in Name Your Price v3.0 eliminate minor errors in cross-functionality. 
• An effective answer to timely and relevant needs: flexible input field for invoicing/bill pay, virtual tip jars, and donations are just a few of the ways to use Name Your Price today in the climate of COVID-19. 
• Outstanding customer support: I’ve earned the trust of countless developers and entrepreneurs, which is reflected in my reviews on WooCommerce.com. I’ll partner with you to make sure you are just as happy with Name Your Price!