Marketing psychological Prices: How a few cents make you buy more?

Marketing psychological Prices: How a few cents make you buy more?

Open the wallet, empty the area of the coins and see what is in it. There may be a lot of coins of one or two cents and a few five living somewhat neglected until enough accumulate as you decide to do something with them (perhaps pay in a store before a salesman smiling with patience and encourages consumers to leave all this chump because that will change ). The feeling is that the coins of one and two cent multiply in the portfolio without anyone having very clear how they got there, but the fact is that if you stop to think you can imagine when finished in the hands of the consumer.

Supermarkets, clothing stores, bookstores up: all outlets are filled with not round prices. Accompanied all costs a few cents figure: cents, moreover, that usually end in 9 or 5. They are those prices which make when paying cash cents coins numerous exchanges is received. And are those prices which are known as psychological prices, prices that appeal to our subconscious to get us to buy products. The amounts seem cheaper, more attractive, and so consumers end up buying.

Marketing psychological Prices How a few cents make you buy morePsychological prices are not new, although studies have analyzed their effectiveness and the reasons why consumers buy following this stimulus itself are more recent. It is unclear who was the first vendor to have the brilliant idea that prices would affect consumers simply by how they were presented, although different sources located different pioneers in this consumer seduction technique. Some think that it all started with a price war among newspapers in Chicago in 1875, who believed that it was an unexpected result of a technique to reduce theft in department stores by employees (more likely have to give change so it’s harder not to put the amount in box) or who put the source in a sportswear salesman in former Czechoslovakia in the 20s.

Anyway, fractional prices (with decimals and cents … to make it look all in a very different way) became very popular over the years. There is more to shop around any supermarket to understand. In a study of the late 90s in the United States, found that 60% of product prices ending in 9 and 28% 5. Prices with decimals, psychological prices make consumers believe that they are bringing a product to a better price and they are paying therefore a much more accurate figure for what they are buying (although deep down it is not real or the difference is so minimal that their impact is not such).

In addition, fractional prices are more difficult to add or calculate mental and quickly, making consumers perceive them in a much less objectionable. That’s what explains that in sales, prices always fall to the fraction. If a product cost 10 d0llars and now costs 8 consumer is easy to see that only two dollars have been removed and that the reduction is not as impressive. If lowered to 7.97 dollars, making the account is more complex (takes less than a couple of seconds and involves stopping to think) what makes the impact is that of ‘really has lowered’. In fact, the reduction is not much more than those two dollars with which we started.

The power of seduction 9

The impact on how we buy price is very high and the attractiveness of number 9 is even more so. Why prices ending in 9? There are many studies that have asked and several are the answers found. As pointed out in an article in The Atlantic, one of the reasons why consumers prefer price finished 9 it is because the brain does not read or does not process the full price. Thus, if two products face 5.99 and 6, the fact is that the two have a very close price (objectively), but the consumer will not see that. The buyer will process the first price only the beginning and your brain will think you are buying something that is closer to 5 to 6.

Moreover, some of the finishes in nine have an added meaning. The brain buyer quickly translates everything that ends in .99 as an offer and that makes anything that has that name more attractive than any other that does not.

Buyers love therefore prices ending in 9 and that makes sales of these products are higher. 9 The impact is so high that even outsells rationally cheaper endings. A study at MIT and the University of Chicago compared how consumers react to various women’s garments with prices set and closed before by researchers. They faced the same product to consumers to 34, 39 and 44 dollars to see how customers buy. Logic says that the product of $ 34 would be one that would be more successful. The study shows that whoever won were 39.

How we see the round prices

Consumers also react differently to round prices and split, as just demonstrated a study by two university experts which has just been published in the Journal of Consumer Research . The difference between one and other is how the purchase is justified: some work better because the consumer appeals to the reason for the purchase and in the other case to emotions. The study has focused on a different field than usual, since traditionally the studies on the impact of prices focus on how the consumer sees the product quality or how it interprets whether or not it is a good price.

“A round price ($ 100) encourages consumers to rely on their emotions when looking at a product, while a non-round price ($ 98.76) encourages based on reason”, explain Monica Wadhwa and Kuangjie Zhang, the study authors. “When a purchase is driven by emotions, round prices lead to a subjective experience of feeling is right,” they add.

So round prices function on purchases that are not useful, the things that are made simply to fulfill an emotional goal, such as products for family holidays, while fractional prices succeed in acquisitions that have a utility behind, such as shopping at the supermarket, purchasing clothes or drugstore products.

The impact of the place in the price

But the truth is that not only the type of product can make the price the consumer is willing to pay for a product, also modifies the perception stage. It is not the same to buy a product in a seedy place, so to speak, than in a luxury, but what is purchased is exactly the same. And the consumer may grumble, but the fact is that studies show that this is exactly what you expect (and what therefore wants: the price must go to match the context).

A case is usually that used to exemplify this situation: a jewelry store could not sell a necklace of turquoise and would put it at half price. They were wrong and doubled the price rather than lower it. The unexpected result was that sales rose. The consumer associates products and space to a luxury experience and therefore is more willing to buy and pay. The user associates certain amounts with premium quality and experience and therefore is willing to pay for it.

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