Thread: Pricing

Originally Posted by MikeT

Howdy gents,
I have a question about pricing.
Not "what" price, but why do sellers set prices that are 1 cent, or 5 cents or so below an even price..?
Example: $49.99 or $199.95 or $9.99... Etc.

Is there some sort of benefit they are receiving?
Is this some kind of Jedi mind trick to make me think that these are the droids I am looking for?

I feel like I'm missing something, maybe because I don't want to assume such tactics actually work..
I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, I'm a little blond sometimes.

They're also called, "smart" numbers.

For instance, an item that goes from .99 cents to .97 cents, triggers a inventory tag in the computer that categorizes the item as "clearance", any front line worker that see's .97 cents, knows it's now clearance.

In my time in retail I've seen dozens and dozen's of different configurations, .99 cents is one (they can be different for each retail industry or chain), .95 cents is another, I mentioned .97 cents. Then you'll see 87 cents, 56 cents, anytime you see a number like that it's usually "tagged" against an uploaded marketing program, with a start date and end date. Once the "sale" or "event" ends, the computer reverts to the old pricing model.

It's actually a pretty ingenious way of doing things, the front line people after about 6 months usually know all the numbers by heart, and can tell you what they mean.

A recent campaign of 99.88 seemed to lure them in...
Boy, did they get hammered!

Lotsa peeps are ignorant in life and rely on....Advertising!

As a 40+ year veteran of retail grocery, I know for a fact that 'Corporate' has figured out that 10 for $10's sells more product than 5 for $5's even though it's the exact same price.