IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0270850.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Psychological price perception may exert a weaker effect on purchasing decisions than previously suggested: Results from a large online experiment fail to reproduce either a left-digit or perceptual-fluency effect

Author

Listed:
  • Achiel Fenneman
  • Jörn Sickmann
  • Sascha Füllbrunn
  • Carina Goldbach
  • Thomas Pitz

Abstract

Retail store prices are frequently set to either a just-below (e.g., $1.99) or rounded to (e.g., $2.00) integer levels. Previous studies proposed two price-perception effects that may underly such psychological pricing strategies. First, the left-digit effect (LDE) assumes consumers read prices left-to-right. Cognitive limitations let consumers overweight the impact of digits on the left side of the price while underweighting digits on the right side of the price. This effect appears to conflict with the contradictory perceptual fluency effect (PFE), which proposes that a rounded price is more perceptual fluent and, thus, more attractive to consumers. To address these paradoxical effects, we conducted an online experiment with 266 participants making a total of 4788 purchasing decisions where we systematically varied the purchasing prices of otherwise identical lottery tickets across two price levels. Against expectations, we found no support for either of the two price-perception effects. We propose three possible explanations of these null results.

Suggested Citation

  • Achiel Fenneman & Jörn Sickmann & Sascha Füllbrunn & Carina Goldbach & Thomas Pitz, 2022. "Psychological price perception may exert a weaker effect on purchasing decisions than previously suggested: Results from a large online experiment fail to reproduce either a left-digit or perceptual-f," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(8), pages 1-14, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0270850
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0270850
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0270850
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0270850&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0270850?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chien-Huang Lin & Jyh-Wen Wang, 2017. "Erratum to: Distortion of price discount perceptions through the left-digit effect," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 169-169, March.
    2. Stiving, Mark & Winer, Russell S, 1997. "An Empirical Analysis of Price Endings with Scanner Data," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 24(1), pages 57-67, June.
    3. James Banks & Zoe Oldfield, 2007. "Understanding Pensions: Cognitive Function, Numerical Ability and Retirement Saving," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 28(2), pages 143-170, June.
    4. Eric Anderson & Duncan Simester, 2003. "Effects of $9 Price Endings on Retail Sales: Evidence from Field Experiments," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 93-110, March.
    5. Chien-Huang Lin & Jyh-Wen Wang, 2017. "Distortion of price discount perceptions through the left-digit effect," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 99-112, March.
    6. Isaac M. Lipkus & Greg Samsa & Barbara K. Rimer, 2001. "General Performance on a Numeracy Scale among Highly Educated Samples," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 21(1), pages 37-44, February.
    7. Monica Wadhwa & Kuangjie Zhang, 2015. "This Number Just Feels Right: The Impact of Roundedness of Price Numbers on Product Evaluations," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 41(5), pages 1172-1185.
    8. Jan Wieseke & Anika Kolberg & Laura Marie Schons, 2016. "Life could be so easy: the convenience effect of round price endings," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 474-494, July.
    9. Jan Wieseke & Anika Kolberg & Laura Marie Schons, 2016. "Erratum to: Life could be so easy: the convenience effect of round price endings," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 495-496, July.
    10. Schindler, Robert M & Kirby, Patrick N, 1997. "Patterns of Rightmost Digits Used in Advertised Prices: Implications for Nine-Ending Effects," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 24(2), pages 192-201, September.
    11. Manoj Thomas & Vicki Morwitz, 2005. "Penny Wise and Pound Foolish: The Left-Digit Effect in Price Cognition," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 32(1), pages 54-64, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Snir, Avichai & (Allan) Chen, Haipeng & Levy, Daniel, 2022. "Zero-ending prices, cognitive convenience, and price rigidity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 519-542.
    2. Marcial López-Pastor & Jesús García-Madariaga & Joaquín Sánchez & Jose Figueiredo, 2020. "Demand Impact for Prices Ending with “9” and “0” in Online and Offline Consumer Goods Retail Trade Channels," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 10(6), pages 58-78.
    3. Dogerlioglu-Demir, Kivilcim & Akpinar, Ezgi & Gurhan-Canli, Zeynep & Koçaş, Cenk, 2022. "Are 1-endings the new 9-endings? An alternative for generating price discount perceptions," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    4. Jeong, Ji Youn & Crompton, John L., 2018. "Do subjects from high and low context cultures attribute different meanings to tourism services with 9-ending prices?," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 110-118.
    5. Snir, Avichai & Levy, Daniel & Chen, Haipeng (Allan), 2017. "End of 9-endings, price recall, and price perceptions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 157-163.
    6. Snir, Avichai & Levy, Daniel, 2021. "If You Think 9-Ending Prices Are Low, Think Again," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 6(1 (Forthc).
    7. Levy, Daniel & Snir, Avichai & Gotler, Alex & Chen, Haipeng (Allan), 2020. "Not all price endings are created equal: Price points and asymmetric price rigidity," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue forthcomi.
    8. Chen, Haipeng (Allan) & Levy, Daniel & Snir, Avichai, 2017. "End of 9-Endings and Price Perceptions," MPRA Paper 76342, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Chen, Tao, 2018. "Round-number biases and informed trading in global markets," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 105-117.
    10. Cardella, Eric & Seiler, Michael J., 2016. "The effect of listing price strategy on real estate negotiations: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 71-90.
    11. Asmus Olsen, 2013. "The politics of digits: evidence of odd taxation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 154(1), pages 59-73, January.
    12. Edward S. Knotek & Doron Sayag & Avichai Snir, 2019. "The Effects of Price Endings on Price Rigidity: Evidence from VAT Changes," Working Papers 19-24, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    13. Mitra, Debanjan & Fay, Scott, 2010. "Managing Service Expectations in Online Markets: A Signaling Theory of E-tailer Pricing and Empirical Tests," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 184-199.
    14. Aparicio, Diego & Rigobon, Roberto, 2023. "Quantum prices," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    15. Utpal Bhattacharya & Craig W. Holden & Stacey Jacobsen, 2012. "Penny Wise, Dollar Foolish: Buy-Sell Imbalances On and Around Round Numbers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 413-431, February.
    16. Macé, Sandrine, 2012. "The Impact and Determinants of Nine-Ending Pricing in Grocery Retailing," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 115-130.
    17. Banerjee, Prantosh J. & Tripathi, Sanjeev & Sahay, Arvind, 2016. "When less is better than more: Just-below discount in tensile price promotions," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 93-102.
    18. Jeong, Ji Youn & Crompton, John L., 2017. "The use of odd-ending numbers in the pricing of five tourism services in three different cultures," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 135-146.
    19. Antonio FILIPPIN, 2009. "A field experiment on the effect of .99 price endings," Departmental Working Papers 2009-26, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    20. Béatrice Parguel & Annalisa Fraccaro & Sandrine Macé, 2021. "Compromise pricing in luxury," Post-Print halshs-03503443, HAL.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0270850. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.