Entering Price Ranges and Price Requests on FB

When setting up the “about us” tab on your FB page, in the details section of your description there is an option to set up a price range. Though this is a rather obscure indicator, in all fairness to Facebook, with the millions of businesses they support, how do they represent price information? The solution they provide is using dollar signs ($$).

Businesses have the choice of selecting from one to four dollar signs: $, $$, $$$, $$$$ with $ representing inexpensive to $$$$ representing expensive… relative to other competitors in the same market space. Should these be used?

For many industries these work fine. With restaurants our preconceptions would lead us to think that “$” is associated with a fast-food establishment while “$$$$” is more in line with a steak house. Does this classification system still work for funeral homes and cemeteries?

Given the wide range of products and services which can be included in an arrangement these days, it is very difficult to represent pricing. Depending on what a family decides on or what a competitor uses in their quote to a family, pigeon holing price this way may set you at a disadvantage.

Unless you have as a business strategy to establish yourself as a low cost competitor (this is not a recommended approach for so many reasons!), where you would use “$” to show you offer very competitive pricing, using other “$” as a price indicator is ambiguous. Does $$ mean you offer cremation options? Does it mean you have a lower than average price for traditional funerals? It is very difficult to interpret the meaning of $$ or $$$$. So it is recommended you leave this field empty.

That said, you will on occasion receive a request for price info. FB will notify you that your page information is incomplete. Resist the urge to complete this section. Perhaps a better route when receiving price information requests is to PM the individual on FB, explain there are a wide variety of options at different prices, hence you do not provide range information on the page and then invite them to contact you directly and you will send them your price list.