[raverbashing]

Round Price Preference

Yes, please, let's stop the 99.99 crap. And with sales tax the point is moot

Even better, let's not have more than 3 significant digits on prices (ok, maybe 4 or 5 for high value items)

[oakesm9]

Damn right. Add the comment on http://coglode.com/gems/round-pricing-preference to start the debate!

[weedow]

(Hello from Israel) it's a new law around here that forces marketers to publish prices as a multiplier of 0.05

[raverbashing]

In a similar way, in Canada the pennies (0.01) have been phased out so everything is rounded up or down to multiples of five cents.

[mantrax3]

Ron Johnson thought that, so removed the cheap pricing tricks from JCPenney.

People stopped buying.

He was fired.

[adwf]

Yeah I was going to say that the round pricing rule here is one of the more controversial ones. It's been proven time and time again that prices set at .99 will outsell their rounded competition by quite a way. It doesn't even have to be cents or pennies, something priced at $49 will outsell the one at $50.

I remember hearing of one study (I read this in Priceless by William Poundstone, good book), that compared the exact same product sold at $44, $39 and $34 through a split-tested mail order catalogue. Obviously, the $39 outsold the $44 as it was cheaper - but bizarrely, the $39 also outsold the $34.

There is a very weird power to the number 9 in pricing, I wouldn't underestimate it. If anyone wants further reading, I suggest googling "Charm Prices".

[vidarh]

One explanation I've seen, is that the "9" prices have come to be associated with discounts. $34 sounds like it was set based on cost. $39 sounds like it was set to be cheaper than something.

[raverbashing]

No, I think he removed the "Sale: Was $30, today it's $10" and put the $10 without the "pretend sale".