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When most people shop passionately online, they calculate the price in mind. But every time you open a shopping cart to check out, people always find: is it so expensive?

Carelessness! Met the "0.9 assassin" again.

From 1999 yuan for electronics to 199 yuan for fleece jackets, the "online vegetable market" is now surrounded by the Mantissa 9. Not only that, some businesses also make the ".9" size very small.

"good 9 does not see" does not mean that.

Buy ten items at hand, and 9 yuan is quietly added to the total price. And the prices of those 19 and 29 are not much at first glance, but the addition of one or two shopping carts is more than three digits. The total price of 5 pieces of 19 yuan is not 60 yuan, but 95 yuan!

How can businesses still use such pricing tricks after so many years? I am not short of that penny and a dollar, why can't I set a good price?

9 what is the magic? Using the number 9 as the end of the price is not new. In an age when people were still looking at catalogs and mail orders, field psychological experiments found that ending prices with 9 would increase sales. This phenomenon has also been repeatedly "tested" by research in the field of consumption.

A 2020 study analyzed the pricing of different goods online and offline, and reviewed the results of 36 related studies. The researchers found that although the experimental results were not entirely consistent, pricing ending in 9 did increase sales and make consumers feel cheaper. To put it simply, this pricing strategy does work.

"Magic number" 9? the creativity of the picture worm

Sometimes, this effect can even make goods with higher prices sell better. In an article published in the Harvard Business Review, Eric Anderson, a professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business, and Duncan Simeste, a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Business, conducted an experiment: they raised the price of a dress from 34 yuan to 39 yuan, resulting in a 1/3 increase in demand, but when the price was increased to 44 yuan, the phenomenon disappeared.

Today, pricing ending in 9 appears in all categories of goods. People are also gradually discovering the secret behind the magic effect.

Eyes: 4.9 yuan

Brain: 4 yuan

The same as the price of 1999 yuan, the appearance of 0.90 yuan is also to take advantage of people's habit of receiving and processing visual information. For most people who read from left to right, "laziness" gives the left number effect a chance to develop its skills.

When we first see the number on the left, we form a view of the price. Even if there is little difference between the two numbers, the first number that starts with a lower price still has a considerable psychological effect (for example, $3.99 to $4.00), giving the illusion that the price is significantly lower.

Some studies have shown that prices ending in 9 increase sales of low-priced goods. As Lee E. Hibbett, associate professor of marketing at Henderson Friedman University, puts it: "We tend to try to reduce the energy spent on making product decisions, especially on low-cost products."

0.9 yuan, it feels like no money! Fruit shell snack rack

If there is a zero, I am afraid it is not a discount? In many stores and supermarkets, the pricing of promotional goods usually ends with 9, so that customers can feel the discount information. This, in turn, creates an association that prices ending in 9 are equal to discounts and promotions. Price-conscious consumers are used to believing that even if the price reduction is small, they can buy good value for money when they buy goods with a "9 tail price".

9 is not so omnipotent, although all kinds of experiments have constantly verified the effect of 9, it is not "useful for every 9".

Here is the name and criticism of the original e-commerce company! ".9" the commodity prices at the end need to be compared with other commodity prices in order to show an advantage. You sneak down with a lot of ".9", isn't it a little out of silver?

Researchers once did a similar experiment in a restaurant. During the six-week experiment, they priced the pizza differently. They found that customers preferred some pizzas when they ended with a price of 9. But if all pizzas end in 9, customers will no longer prefer one.

Not only that, 9 has different effects on different types of goods. The study found that odd pricing is more effective in encouraging consumers to buy hedonic products. This includes not only luxury goods, but also products with less practical features, such as the same phone with a new color.

Apple uses 9 as the price Mantissa for all Apple phones (Apple / Youtube).

One possible reason is that odd prices reduce people's guilt. Consumers will feel less guilty because they think they are not buying hedonistic products at the "full price", which also provides a reason for hedonism.

In addition, the "magic" of this pricing may not be unique, but partly due to consumers' adaptation and learning to numbers.

Considering the minimum cash denomination and misleading merchants, the Israeli government banned merchants from pricing at a non-zero end in 2014. This means that merchants cannot end pricing with .99, and then many merchants turn to .90. Levy et al took the opportunity to study the impact of nine-tail pricing changes.

Before the ban, studies found that the price of an item ending with .99 was more likely to make consumers misremember the price and less likely to notice price increases than other pricing. A year after .99 pricing was banned, the price at the end of .90 became the new normal. Psychologists again found that the price at the end of .90 had the same effect on consumers' memory and perception of the price. This shows that consumers' cognitive systems quickly adapt to the new pricing environment.

Maybe 9 does not have any magic in itself, but when it becomes the norm in the shopping and consumption environment of the commercial market, other merchants also set it as the default price. Consumers learn the pricing habits of merchants, and merchants observe consumers' reactions to different prices and consumption habits. Over and over again, this positive cycle promotes the formation of the "9 tail price".

In order for you to buy more, the merchant will eventually become a "psychological master." in order for you to buy more, there are many pricing strategies for merchants. What you think of shopping may be round after round of "behavioral economics tests" in the eyes of merchants.

When you are faced with a pair of sports shoes with the original price of 399 yuan and a pair of sports shoes with the original price of 699 yuan and the promotional price of 399 yuan, which pair will you buy? In one experiment, a group of customers encountered such a choice. When asked if they were willing to pay $189.99 for a new radio, most people thought the product was overpriced. They were more willing to buy a $500 radio when they were told they had the opportunity to buy a $500 radio at a 38% discount.

Yes, the price of the back radio is also 189.99 US dollars. The two groups actually provided the same radio at the same price.

This is why e-commerce stores seem to be on sale all the year round. The anchoring effect makes merchants fall in love with "discounts", making customers feel that "to keep buying is to keep making money," although no one knows what customers are earning.

Compromise effect, bait effect. Merchants really put a lot of effort into the price. Although the research results related to pricing vary widely, for businesses, as long as the results are good, they will not let go of these "tricks".

It may be difficult for us to escape these "tricks". Be optimistic, however, the next time you encounter the "0.9 Assassin", you can round it up by default. At the time of settlement, perhaps these 0.9 have changed from "assassins" to "surprises".

reference

[1] Anderson, Eric T., and Duncan I. Simester. "Effects of $9 price endings on retail sales: Evidence from field experiments." Quantitative marketing and Economics 1.1 (2003): 93-110.

[2] A. Gabor and C. W. J. Granger, "Price Sensitivity of the Consumer," Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1964, pp. 40-44.

[3] Anderson, Eric, and Duncan Simester. "Mind your pricing cues." Harvard Business Review 81. 9 (2003): 96-103.

[4] L ó pez-Pastor, M., Garc í a-Madariaga, J., S á nchez, J., & Figueiredo, J. (2020). Demand impact for prices ending with "9" and "0" in online and offline consumer goods retail trade channels. International Review of Management and Marketing, 10 (6), 58-78.

[5] Sales Prices: How Right Digits Affect Perception of Discounts. Https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070829122925.htm

[6] Gui é guen, Nicolas, et al. "Nine-ending prices and consumer's behavior: A field study in a restaurant." International Journal of Hospitality Management 28.1 (2009): 170172.

[7] Snir, Avichai, Daniel Levy, and Haipeng Allan Chen. "End of 9-endings, price recall, and price perceptions." Economics Letters 155 (2017): 157163.

An AI: there is a "zero effect" in the balance, which means that when the balance of the wallet is zero, people will not spend money. (dog head)

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: fruit Shell (ID:Guokr42), author: Ji Xiaodi er Editor: window knocking Rain, Owl

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