When any business charges $1.99 for something instead of $2.00, that is an obvious attempt to trick you into thinking it's even cheaper than it is. You're way more than .5% more likely to purchase it, so losing the penny on every sale is easily made up. Makes business sense, but I think it shows a bit of contempt for the customer.
We all know this and just accept it. But I disagree with the practice of subtly manipulating someone's understanding of anything in order to make a sale. Even if it's just a penny off the price. Just on principle, I'd rather pay a solid price and feel like I'm at a business that isn't trying to trick me in any way.
What u think? Messmaster
Stay messy, my friends
12/3/21, 5:00pm: Note: Leaving this as an announcement only for a day or two, then back to Non-Wam forum
It bothers me less as I use less cash than ever before. However, it was always an incredibly annoying thing when buying things for cash, and would frequently put me off so actually worked against the retailer.
The reason cash businesses used to do it was so the people working the tills would have to give change, meaning they had to ring the item up on the till and record the sale - instead of just pocketing the money the customer gave them. Obviously this makes no sense at all for an on-line retailer, but we've all got used to it so sellers still do it. 90% of our scenes are round prices, and we've no shortage of sales on them.
Especially now given how worthless money is and that the materials that change is made from is worth more as a material than what it's minted as. This is why American pennies stopped being made of copper after 1982.
MM this has been going on since time immemorial, and yes I assume that all these millions of companies who do this assume we're all thick and fall for the weak attempt to make us believe that £/$1.99 is way better than £/$2.
Having said that I suspect many people still do fall for it since these companies still do it. After all £$1 something has got to be better than £$2 something, right?
I saw it suggested recently that there should be a 99p/99c coin lol.
Credit to Marks & Spencer here in UK (Are they in US/elsewhere too, I don't know?) they decided a decade or two ago to just round up their prices to the next £/$ so you get items for sale at £/$20 etc, which is what you're alluding to. If only all the rest of them would stop this 99p/c crap then it would be a lot better.
To me the irony of it all is that the people who are part of these companies who make these decisions to charge like that also happen to be members of the public who buy goods from other companies who, guess what, also price their goods in exactly the same way, to try and fool those who buy from them lol.
My biggest peeve is when I go to get fuel (gas) for my car. For a few years now the price has been typically 149.9 pence a litre. In the UK the smallest denomination of currency is1p and I have been sorely tempted many times to buy say 5 litres, tender £7.50 and insist on the 0.5p change!
The problem is, if all businesses started using rounded prices, all it takes is then one to go back to .99 and now they've got a "market advantage". Unfortunately, playing fair only works if all the teams involved have to abide by the rules.
Oddly enough, as a customer, I actually like feeling like I'm spending less money than I actually am when it comes to wam. Cause spending $9.99 on a slime video doesn't make me feel as guilty as spending $10 on it would. This of course is just as mentally frivolous as the other side of the exchange; my perv brain is mentally manipulating my reasoning/logic into thinking I'm spending less etc.
But just thought I'd put that out there, since it's somewhat unique to porn (and candy and clothes and other things I shouldn't spend as much money on) and should make everyone feel a little less bad about using a manipulative sales tactic
FWIW, I also think pricing is more about how much the "customer" values the "product" ultimately.
Like @PieZone's prices are on the higher end of the spectrum, but as a customer, I've never felt like I didn't get my money's worth (and then some!) I've probably watched Loraina get slimed 900 times by now, which would be like .02/per sliming. A helluva deal!
Where-as there's videos I've paid $1.99 for that I've deleted before even finishing them.
The assumption in your question is that businesses will lose money if they round prices. I don't see this. Particularly in a retail premises. Quite often in the UK there wil be a charity box in the counter and my perception is that many if not most will tell the retailer to drop the odd penny in the box. If all prices were rounded, the retailer would keep the penny and the charity would lose out. I hate having a purse full of copper, if only because it weighs so much.
In an online sale it matters even less, as unless carriage is free(?) the cost of this is added to the base cost of the product. so you may end up paying pennies anyway. Personally if items are similarly priced, a value judgement is made as to whether one presents better value than another.
In short it makes no difference on-line and in a face to face retail outlet it is more convenient.
I think the .x9 is pretty useless now. Kind of makes as much sense as the change shortage they claim is happening. I only try to even out at the gas pump. The rest of the time I have just become custom to that 1 penny less shit. Yes I think it is crap and that things should just be straight prices. I like when things are easy. Good luck finding someone that can accurately count back change, let alone make it without a computer telling them what the change is.
Can we also discuss that bullshit notion of companies asking you to round up to donate your change to charity. Fuck that. If you want to donate to charity do it on your dime and not the company. All that rounding up does is give them another tax break that you could be getting if you donated outside of the company.
The trick works on me. Even though I'm a economist by training and a financial analyst by profession, when I go to the store and see yakisoba for 499 I'm like, "wow, only 400". I guess it doesn't bother me all that much because Japan isn't a very expensive place to live. I don't make a lot of money, but I'm comfortable. While I'd be living in poverty in America, here I live a nice life and such things as that don't make me even thing about the extra 99 I'm paying.
If I lived in a country like America where everything is way too expensive and I'd have to spend 1,000$ to share a single room apartment with 6 other people, that extra dollar would really bother me. I feel not caring is a privilege I have to be in a comfortable position in my life.
While I voted it doesn't bother me, I totally understand how it would bother many people, especially those who that extra dollar will make all the difference.
Only just realised, Tesco, which is the UK's biggest retailer (think Walmart scale in the US) switched to round prices some years ago. The UK is switching very fast to being a cashless society with almost all transactions being via cards or things like Google Pay, even some beggars have card readers now, so I guess the cost of the cash handling needed to manage the x.99 pricing outweigh the advantages, especially with modern CCTV and electronic accountancy meaning the opportunities for anyone to pocket cash undetected are now much less, even if they don't need to give change.
Remember when JC Penny thought rounding off their merchandise to a dollar point would draw in customers? Well that turned out to being one of the worst ideas in retail history.
We've experimented with both ways of pricing just to see if it makes any difference to sales. It doesn't. So we'll likely stick with rounded off prices just because it's easier to work with
As a customer here (and other places that sell fetish media) considering the prices are in dollars and I my money is in £, I end up searching what the conversion will be, so whether it is .99 or .00 has no impact for this sort of thing because the price I work with is always a messy number.
In a general sense with cash I'd much rather pay .00 because it's just damn easier, but then I hardly ever use cash these days anyway.
KelseyRose said: The problem is, if all businesses started using rounded prices, all it takes is then one to go back to .99 and now they've got a "market advantage".
Since the pandemic and businesses rapidly switching to non-cash transactions, I can't say I think about it at all anymore. I can't remember the last time I used cash, and especially change.
It's all a matter of psychology! To me and others as well, the price ending at $1.99 cents looks more attractive! And indeed, if you buy a lot of materials, you save Therefore, I see no reason to round prices, because for me they sometimes look scary