Started by Tomás Rinaldi (@tomas_rinaldi) ·
why everything costs $X.99
There's a popular story that odd prices were invented to make cashiers open the register and give change instead of pocketing a round-dollar sale. Fun, but nobody seems able to prove it. Left-digit bias is the part that holds up: $4.99 reads as 'four something'.
5 sources · 22 min down the hole
How I got here
- Started with
- Do .99 prices actually work?
- Ended at
- “do 99 cent prices actually work”
The Trail
- “why do prices end in 99” (google.com)
- Psychological pricing (en.wikipedia.org)
- Cash register (en.wikipedia.org)
invented by a saloon owner who thought his bartenders were stealing
- “left digit bias used car mileage study” (google.com)
used-car prices drop in steps at every 10,000 miles on the odometer. 39,900 vs 40,100 miles!
- “do 99 cent prices actually work” (reddit.com)
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