Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

People spend more when prices end in .99 (2018)

kenthendricks.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 210 posts

Re: People spend more when prices end in .99 (2018)

#41

Post by dfox »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #11
throwaway13337 wrote: post #9

I never like thinking of pricing in this way. When you price something as $9.99, you're signaling to your customer that you're trying to manipulate them. Whereas a flat $10 is honest. Integrity means a lot. The software I sell is priced in whole numbers. However, the magnitude of effect claimed in the article is huge. It's the difference between selling at cost and a huge margin. Between doing well and shutting down…

Retailers don't do this because of published studies. They do it because they've tested it internally for the last 40 years.

Well, it is tested internally for at least 100 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%C3%A1%C5%A1_Ba%C5%A5a

Re: People spend more when prices end in .99 (2018)

#42

Post by subroutine »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #11
throwaway13337 wrote: post #9

I never like thinking of pricing in this way. When you price something as $9.99, you're signaling to your customer that you're trying to manipulate them. Whereas a flat $10 is honest. Integrity means a lot. The software I sell is priced in whole numbers. However, the magnitude of effect claimed in the article is huge. It's the difference between selling at cost and a huge margin. Between doing well and shutting down…

Retailers don't do this because of published studies. They do it because they've tested it internally for the last 40 years.

And many physicians still recommend putting ice on sprained ankles 5x per day to reduce the “harmful” swelling. Even though the abundance of research now shows icing delays the infiltration of proteins, hormones, and cells that aid in healing processes (and can even cause further tissue damage).

Practices like this stick around because of the desire to be seen making proactive recommendations with putative benefit.

With the dresses there is clearly something odd happening. In all cases except one the cheapest dresses sold the fewest items even compared to ones that were $10 more expensive.

Re: People spend more when prices end in .99 (2018)

#43

Post by liamwire »

YVoyiatzis wrote: post #10

Actually, the .99 price-point started as a clever way to prevent theft, manage inventory, and keep track of sales. The idea was that pricing something at $1.00 might tempt a cashier to pocket the bill, but pricing it at $0.99 meant they’d have to open the register to give change, reducing the risk. Back then, most registers didn’t print receipts. This method also helped with inventory control. For example, if the tot…

Seems unlikely, given that the inventory control idea falls apart as soon as you suppose there’s items priced below $0.99.

Re: People spend more when prices end in .99 (2018)

#44

Post by BensonGao »

.99 is actually a pricing psychological strategy. Strangely, you won't often see this kind of pricing in offline retail stores, only during promotions. However, online and offline are different. When paying online, people's consumption psychology is more impulsive because you don't take out cash when paying; you just pay a number, and the money is deducted from your bank card. I still quite understand why online pricing is set at .99, because my own website also uses it haha.

Re: People spend more when prices end in .99 (2018)

#45

Post by Ctyra »

subroutine wrote: post #42
tracerbulletx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retailers don't do this because of published studies. They do it because they've tested it internally for the last 40 years.

And many physicians still recommend putting ice on sprained ankles 5x per day to reduce the “harmful” swelling. Even though the abundance of research now shows icing delays the infiltration of proteins, hormones, and cells that aid in healing processes (and can even cause further tissue damage). Practices like this stick around because of the desire to be seen making proactive recommendations with putative benefit. W…

> Even though the abundance of research now shows icing delays the infiltration of proteins, hormones, and cells that aid in healing processes (and can even cause further tissue damage).

Do you mind sharing any references

Re: People spend more when prices end in .99 (2018)

#46

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #9

I never like thinking of pricing in this way. When you price something as $9.99, you're signaling to your customer that you're trying to manipulate them. Whereas a flat $10 is honest. Integrity means a lot. The software I sell is priced in whole numbers. However, the magnitude of effect claimed in the article is huge. It's the difference between selling at cost and a huge margin. Between doing well and shutting down…

> Are we selling our integrity for bad science?

Are we selling our inner peace for outrage over minor things?

Re: People spend more when prices end in .99 (2018)

#47

Post by pitaj »

Waterluvian wrote: post #7

The psychology is fascinating. I would have thought that $1 feels smaller than $0.99. Two nines feels heavy. But despite what my mom would say, I’m surely wrong if everyone else is doing it.

It's really about the leading digit being one less. Our intuitive sense of quantity knows that 1X is always greater than 0Y, and that on average given random X and Y, 1X is three times 0Y.

Our mind is a superposition of intuitive sense and reason, so even when we can reason that they're very close in price, our intuitive sense still plays into our decision-making. That's my theory anyways.

Re: People spend more when prices end in .99 (2018)

#48

Post by compressedgas »

Ctyra wrote: post #45
subroutine wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And many physicians still recommend putting ice on sprained ankles 5x per day to reduce the “harmful” swelling. Even though the abundance of research now shows icing delays the infiltration of proteins, hormones, and cells that aid in healing processes (and can even cause further tissue damage). Practices like this stick around because of the desire to be seen making proactive recommendations with putative benefit. W…

> Even though the abundance of research now shows icing delays the infiltration of proteins, hormones, and cells that aid in healing processes (and can even cause further tissue damage). Do you mind sharing any references

https://drmirkin.com/fitness/why-ice-delays-recovery.html

Re: People spend more when prices end in .99 (2018)

#49

Post by kerkeslager »

YVoyiatzis wrote: post #10

Actually, the .99 price-point started as a clever way to prevent theft, manage inventory, and keep track of sales. The idea was that pricing something at $1.00 might tempt a cashier to pocket the bill, but pricing it at $0.99 meant they’d have to open the register to give change, reducing the risk. Back then, most registers didn’t print receipts. This method also helped with inventory control. For example, if the tot…

You've obviously never worked in retail of any kind if you think the number of cents at the end of the day is useful for anything.

And you're "correcting" an article which has citations, based on what? A story you heard? Citation needed, buddy.

Come on.

Re: People spend more when prices end in .99 (2018)

#50

Post by kerkeslager »

The kind of person who looks at this sort of thing and says, "Hey we should use this to manipulate people" is the kind of person our society needs less of.

I'm sure Hacker News will have some earnest argument for why this form of competition is actually good for people.

Post reply on HN