{"id":70348,"date":"2017-06-14T09:50:25","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T14:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=70348"},"modified":"2017-06-05T20:52:34","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T01:52:34","slug":"luxury-versus-discount-pricing-and-the-meaning-of-the-number-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2017\/06\/14\/luxury-versus-discount-pricing-and-the-meaning-of-the-number-9\/","title":{"rendered":"“Luxury” versus “discount” pricing and the meaning of the number 9"},"content":{"rendered":"

I discovered a nice gem of an insight this week in an article called The 11 Ways That Consumers Are Hopeless at Math<\/a>: the symbolism of the number 9.<\/p>\n

We’re all familiar with the\u00a0convention of pricing items one penny below a round number: $1.99 instead of $2.00, $39.99 instead of $40.00, etc. Psychologically, marketers know that this works. We’re more likely to buy something at $89.99 than we are at $90.00.<\/p>\n

It’s not, though, because we are tricked by that extra penny for our pockets. It’s because, so argues Derek Thompson, the .99 symbolizes “discount.” It is more than just a number, it has a meaning. It now says to us not just 9<\/em>, but also You are getting a deal<\/em>. It doesn’t matter if it’s a carton of eggs for $2.99 or a dishwasher for $299.99. In both cases, putting two 9s at the end makes us feel like smart shoppers.<\/p>\n

To bring this point home, in those moments when we’re not<\/em> looking for a deal, the number 9 has the opposite effect. When marketers want to sell a “luxury” item, they generally don’t use the 9s. They simply state the round number price. The whole point of buying a luxury item is to spend a lot of money because you have the money to spend. It shouldn’t<\/em> feel like a deal; it should feel like an indulgence. Thompson uses the example of lobster at a high-end restaurant. They don’t sell it to you for $99.99. That looks cheap. They ask you for the $100. And, if you’ve got the money and you’re in the mood, it feels good exactly in part because there are no 9s.<\/p>\n

Definitely no 9s:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo by artjour street art<\/a> flickr creative commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not yet convinced? Consider as an example this price tag for a flat screen television. Originally priced at $2,300.00, but discounted at $1,999.99. Suddenly on sale and a whole lot of 9s:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo by Paul Swansen<\/a> flickr creative commons; cropped.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I discovered a nice gem of an insight this week in an article called The 11 Ways That Consumers Are Hopeless at Math: the symbolism of the number 9. We’re all familiar with the\u00a0convention of pricing items one penny below a round number: $1.99 instead of $2.00, $39.99 instead of $40.00, etc. Psychologically, marketers know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":70349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,329,129,23703,675,293,23622],"class_list":["post-70348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-economics","tag-emotion","tag-media","tag-marketing","tag-psychology","tag-social-construction","tag-social-construction-symbols"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2017\/06\/3.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70348"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70354,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70348\/revisions\/70354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}