hello projecthope friends!!!, hope you guys doing well today..
The secret of the number "9", maybe you'll be wondering what's the meaning of the title, or what's the secret of the number 9 ?, Or is this a math trick?
well this may have to do with mathematics, but not in operation or calculating terms. but we'll discuss about it in its application on marketing strategy.
please take a look at the picture above! Can you see the similarities of the six types of products being sold ? Don't say that all products have a "super coupon" header, no, that's not our topic..😄
yes,, it's the price, look at how the offered price for the six products has the same last number, "9".
I believe that most of us often see it when shopping right ? but have you ever wondered why it ends with the number of "9" instead of other numbers like 1, 2, 3 and others ...? or why are the prices should be in $ 4.99 not $ 5 ?, lets find out...
Price Psychology
Price psychology is a pricing strategy based on the theory that certain prices could have a psychological impact on consumers.
wikipedia
so to set "9" at the end of the price is a part of price psycology..
So how does the number "9" have a psychological impact on consumers?
ok, in general humans really avoid losses, and prefer profits even if it's small, right ? so that's one of the reasons why the price of that product ends in "9".
For example, on the $ 4.99 price tag. a buyer will think that the reference price of the product is $ 5, so he/she would think that if he/she buys the product he/she will make a profit of $ 0.01..
other reasons are to increase the seller's profit. Instead of setting a price of $ 4.88, the seller will naturally choose $ 4.99. This is also based on the marketing theory that buyers tend to ignore the last 2-3 digits of a product's price. for example if the price is $ 1.99 it would give the impression to buyers that the product is still worth $ 1..
and to maximize it, we can make the last 2-3 digits of the price to be smaller than the first one. it aims to give more impression and attention to the first number. as you can see it in the previous picture..
Conclusion
setting the number of "9" at the end of the price is one of marketing tricks based on psycologgy. aims to maximize sales of those products..
btw this post is also a part of psychology, it will make you pay more attention to the price when buying something and will no longer keep you stuck with the "9" trick .. 😄
References :
The Psychology of Price: How to use price to increase demand, profit and customer satisfaction, Leigh Caldwell (if you wanna know more about price psycology, this book is recomended)
image by @project-hope