The "Double Eleven" Shopping Festival is coming again. Most stores have started discounting(打折) their goods. Now, if you take a careful look at the sale prices, you'll find that many of them end in "9" or "5.99 minutes." It's not common to say "Just give me 59 minutes" either. We are more likely to say "Just give me six minutes" and "just give me 60 minutes". Why do stores prefer the other way round?
According to Lee E. Hibbett, a professor of marketing, this pricing strategy(策略) has been around for about a century. No one knows who invented it. However, stores all like it. Prices that end in ".99" and "9" simply get more customers.
The strategy is based on the fact that we read from left to right. On a price tag(标签), the number on the far left impresses us the most. So, even though 5. 99 dollars is pretty close to 6 dollars, it's the "5" that impresses us most. A product that sells for 5.99 dollars just seems like a better deal than a similar one that sells for 6 dollars.
In a 2016 study, Hibbett asked a clothing company to raise the price of one of its dresses. He and his workmates all thought fewer people would buy the dress. The result, however, surprised them. Demand(销路) increased by a third when the price was raised from $ 34 to $ 39. Increasing the price from$ a4 to$ 44 made no difference.
So be careful with prices that end in ".99" or "9" if you want to save money!
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