nytimes.com — Eleven years ago, researchers discovered a quirk in consumers’ thinking about prices: they acted as if low digits were farther apart than higher ones. For example, consumers behaved as if there were more of a gap between three and four than between eight and nine.
Jul 30, 2007 View in Crawl 4
jeffiekJul 30, 2007
fta: "Students who saw ads showing a $233 skate marked down to $222 thought they were getting a larger discount than did students who saw a $199 skate marked down to $188, even though the opposite was true."Is it just me, or are today's kids really bad at math? Or is it the schools that are teaching them?
roguenine2000Jul 31, 2007
i don't look at sale items by percentages though... because even if i get a huge percentage off the only thing that matters is actual money saved
Closed AccountJul 31, 2007
Intelligent, wealthy people don't read the news...they make the news.
s1mph0ny_Jul 31, 2007
The $11 discount from the second one is more significant because it's a larger percentage of total cost. It's also a lower cost item, so a consumer is less likely to care about the price. The "quirk", as the NYC describes it, could just be conflicting principles of economics.It's kind of important to keep that kind of thing out of your quirk study, otherwise your results are worthless.
theholycowJul 31, 2007
Comment abuse because I'm feeling pretty abused, what with having to post this even though it should be common knowledge:<a class="user" href="http://www.bugmenot.com/view/nytimes.com">http://www.bugmenot.com/view/nytimes.com</a><a class="user" href="http://www.bugmenot.com/view/www.nytimes.com">http://www.bugmenot.com/view/www.nytimes.com</a>And, for those too lazy...Drilling DownMinding the Gap in Sizing Up Sale Prices By ALEX MINDLINEleven years ago, researchers discovered a quirk in consumers’ thinking about prices: they acted as if low digits were farther apart than higher ones. For example, consumers behaved as if there were more of a gap between three and four than between eight and nine.A recent paper in the Journal of Consumer Research builds on that notion by examining people’s responses to sale prices for fictional items, focusing on their reactions to differing right-hand digits in price figures. The paper was written by Keith S. Coulter and Robin A. Coulter, professors at Clark University and the University of Connecticut, respectively.In one study, college students looked at an ad for a fictional roller skate that gave the skate’s regular and sale prices. Among other questions, the students were asked how likely they were to buy the skates and how large they thought the discount was. Students who saw ads showing a $233 skate marked down to $222 thought they were getting a larger discount than did students who saw a $199 skate marked down to $188, even though the opposite was true. The first group of students also rated themselves about 20 percent more likely to buy the skates than did the others. ALEX MINDLIN[There is a graphic of text that says:"5.53 - Perceived discount percentage when a $233 item is marked down to $2224.18 - Perceived discount percentage when a $199 item is marked down to $188"]
bcc0232Jul 31, 2007
Here is one interesting theory:<a class="user" href="http://www.pricepointreport.com/">http://www.pricepointreport.com/</a>The guy there wants money for it, but just read the description. It's pretty amazing.
samkJul 31, 2007
The explanation is pretty simple. People ignore the first digits. They evaluate $33 to $22 and $99 to $88, and conclude that the first is a bigger discount.
cautiousAug 3, 2007
Right, because those are the perceived ones.