[Wowfunhappy]

> 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.

Wouldn't the extra labor required offset any potential savings? (More time per transaction means you need to hire more cashiers to keep checkout line length down.)

[johnnyanmac]

It's a small form of security, and we've traditionally traded some convinence and efficiency to mitigate theft.

[Wowfunhappy]

Yes but in this case it's a weak form of security, for a significant efficiency loss. I'm sorry but I don't really believe that most businesses would look at this tradeoff and decide it makes sense.

[johnnyanmac]

We're talking about a pricing scheme conceived in a time right around the birth of the assembly line. And right around the stock market crashed.

Everything wasn't about raw profits once upon a time. So a small piece of mind makes sense.