Last Updated on 16/05/2011
In Canada, and much of the Western world, most pricing is set in the $0.99 format.
This annoying policy of the business is misleading to the consumer, wasteful, propagates nearly useless loose change (1 cent coin or the penny) and perpetuates the antipathy most people feel towards business.
Businesses mislead customers by pricing their goods with a 99¢ ending. This allows them to set a price at $19.99, for example, and advertise it as “less than $20” or “under $20″ when the price, a penny notwithstanding” is $20 and not $19, $14 or $1.
Wal-Mart has taken this type of pricing to the extreme with $18.97 and $7.48 type pricing stickers. So for the meaningless savings of 3¢ or 2¢ respectively the average person is stimulated to travel further, spend more time, burn more gas and pollute and possibly hoard goods that potentially go bad in the fridge or pantry. Ironically, when advertising ‘buy 2’ or ‘buy 3’ pricing Wal-mart reverts back to even pricing, as in ‘buy 3 for $5.’
Consumers need to understand and react negatively to this type of marketing, or in this case trickery.
Governments need to step in and free the populace from misleading so-called savings that cost us more than they save us. Essentially, as it often does, legislation would be freeing business from itself and people from themselves in the same way as traffic lights mitigate and hinder people to everyone’s advantage.
In the meantime, I will cross the street for the same good if it is priced and tagged honestly i.e. evenly there.
Cool! That’s a clever way of looking at it!