The Widespread Use of Odd Pricing in the Retail （奇怪的广泛使用在零售定价）.pdf

Marketing Bulletin, 1997, 8, 53-58, Research Note 1 The Widespread Use of Odd Pricing in the Retail Sector Judith Holdershaw, Philip Gendall and Ron Garland All home-drop advertising material, and all advertising displayed in two free weekly newspapers, and the local daily (Manawatu Evening Standard) was analysed over a seven day period to identify the prevalence of odd pricing. Each advertisement was analysed on the basis of the right-most digit displayed. In other words, if cents endings were used, the analysis was based on the cents ending, regardless of the whole dollar amounts shown. In the case of whole dollar amounts, again the analysis was based on the last digit, or lowest dollar numeral. An analysis of 840 advertisements revealed that odd prices, in particular prices ending in the digit 9, clearly outnumbered all other price endings. In total, 87% of prices were defined as odd prices. Approximately 60% of prices ended in the digit 9, with a further 30% of prices ending in the digit 5. Thus, approximately 90% of prices ended in either 9 or 5. Three digits (0, 5, 9) accounted for nearly 97% of price endings, with the remaining seven digits accounting for only slightly over 3%. Whatever pricing methods retailers use, there is a definite bias in favour of odd price endings. Keywords: odd pricing, psychological pricing Introduction Casual observation of advertised retail prices throughout New Zealand highlights the prolific use of odd pricing, the practice of pricing just below the nearest round number (for example, $9.99 instead of $10.00, or $99.95 instead of $100). The popularity of prices ending in the digit 9 and, to a lesser extent, the digit 5, reflects the belief that odd pricing will produce higher than expected