The “PP?” Nightmare
You post a stunning photo of your new product on Instagram. It looks great. You are excited.
Within minutes, the comments start rolling in.
“PP?”
“Price please?”
“Details?”
“Check DM.”
At first, this looks like success. People are interested! But fast forward three hours. You are hunched over your phone, copy-pasting the same message to 50 different people. Your thumbs hurt. You are missing messages. And worse—half of the people you reply to never reply back.
This is the “DM for Price” trap.
While it might feel like “engagement,” it is actually a massive bottleneck that is throttling your revenue.
At Xiphos Webcraft, we help businesses transition from chaotic DMs to automated sales. Here is why switching to a professional online product catalog is the single best move you can make for your sanity and your bank account.
1. Friction Kills the “Impulse Buy“
Buying psychology is all about momentum.
When a customer sees a product they love, they have a surge of dopamine. They want it now.
Scenario A (Website): They see the price, click “Add to Cart,” and pay via UPI. The sale happens in 2 minutes while their excitement is high.
Scenario B (DM): They ask for the price. You reply 4 hours later. By then, the dopamine is gone. They have moved on. They are busy cooking dinner or watching Netflix. You lost the sale not because the price was high, but because the wait was too long.
A professional online product catalog captures that impulse immediately. It removes the friction between “I want this” and “I bought this.”
2. The “Secret Price” Suspicion
Why do sellers hide prices?
Customers often assume the worst. When they see “DM for Price,” they subconsciously think:
“The price is probably really high.”
“They charge different prices to different people based on how rich they look.”
“This is too much effort.”
Transparency builds trust. Displaying your prices clearly on a product catalog for small business sites shows you are confident in your value. It filters out the time-wasters and attracts the serious buyers who are ready to pay.
3. Scaling is Impossible in DMs
You have 24 hours in a day. You need to sleep for 8 of them.
If your sales process relies on you manually typing a message, your income is capped by your typing speed and your sleep schedule.
What happens when you go viral? If 1,000 people message you tomorrow, can you reply to them all? No. You will burn out, and you will lose hundreds of customers in the chaos.
A website has infinite scale.
It can handle 1 visitor or 10,000 visitors simultaneously without breaking a sweat. It never gets tired, it never gets cranky, and it never forgets to send the payment link. To automate Instagram sales, you must remove the human bottleneck (you) from the transaction.
4. The Power of the “Upsell”
In a DM conversation, you are usually selling one item.
“How much for the blue shirt?” -> “It’s ₹999.” -> “Okay, buying it.”
On a website, the strategy changes.
When they view the blue shirt, the website automatically shows them: “Customers also bought these matching trousers.”
Or: “Add these earrings to get Free Shipping.”
This is called the Average Order Value (AOV). A professional online product catalog is designed to encourage customers to buy more than they planned. It is very hard to do this naturally in a chat without sounding pushy.
5. Searchability and Filtering
Imagine a customer wants a “Red Dress in Size M.”
On Instagram: They have to scroll through months of your posts, hoping to spot one. They give up after 30 seconds.
On a Website: They click “Filter by Color: Red” and “Size: M.” Boom. They see exactly what they want in 2 seconds.
You are making your customers work too hard to give you their money. A structured catalog respects their time.
6. Breaking the “WhatsApp Business” Limit
Many owners try to fix this by using WhatsApp Business catalogs. While better than nothing, it is still limited.
You don’t own the platform (Mark Zuckerberg does).
It lacks advanced SEO (Google can’t index your WhatsApp catalog easily).
Payment integration is often clunky compared to a seamless Razorpay or Stripe checkout on a website.
Stop Typing, Start Selling
Your job as a business owner is to source great products and market your brand—not to be a glorified answering machine repeating prices all day.
Transitioning to a website is the moment you stop being a “seller” and start being a “business.”
Ready to automate your growth?
Let Xiphos Webcraft build you a stunning catalog that sells for you, 24/7.
