PaddlerEd;c-145121 wroteWe often willingly give our marketable information to Google etc, but when it comes to a purchase like a car all of a sudden we're going "oh shit no, I'm not giving you any more information than I have to"
Sorry for not following the line, but ultimately companies want to get as much information from you as possible - if you search for them via Google, then Google captures all that information about you.... but it's very hard for the company to do that, likewise if you get the price from Redbook or whoever, then they get the information about you, not the company.
At least Half the point of online research is that it is quick, easy and obligation free. This model buggers all of those things.
Not everyone is going to be turned off by this model, but it is failing to make best use of the website. At a minimum, withholding simple information leaves the impression that the company is high maintenance/needy/controlling.
As a general statement, I think that most businesses underestimate how many significant purchases are made on little more than a whim. And seemingly trivial stuff like not publishing prices is enough to derail a reasonable percentage of those purchases.
On the data privacy side of things, even for the people who know/care about how their data is harvested, it still remains largely abstract and rarely has immediate consequences.
But giving out your phone number to be told the RRP, is inevitably going to result in someone ringing you. This brings lots of potential negatives into your life: maybe the sales person is a jerk. Maybe they will call at an inconvenient time. Maybe they will call you repeatedly. Maybe they will be pushy. Etc.
It takes too much control out of the punter's hands.