Pricing Roulette – Which Is Best?

I have a quick question for you.

How much thought do you put into the pricing of your products and services?

Are you just winging it… are you playing pricing roulette?

Wait.  You Are Killing Your Sales!

Stop it right there… hold your horses.

If it hasn’t become evident to you already, the numbers you use in your price are almost as important as the product and service itself.

So take a little bit of time to choose wisely.

Now… where did I put my magic wand?!?!

More Number Magic

I’ve mentioned numbers and their magical quality on the psyche of your buyers quite a few times before…

like HERE and HERE and HERE

but this time it’s all about the actual number you use in your price.

They may seem trivial or an afterthought but there’s a point.

I promise.

More Questions… More Answers.

When was the last time you saw a price that ended in zero???

Take your time… give it some thought.  I’ll wait.

Seriously, think about it. When was the last time you saw that?  A price that actually ends in zero.  Like 10 or 20 or 200 or 5000?

I’m going to venture to guess that you can’t even remember the last time you saw that.  It seems like everything from music downloads to clothing to food all the way up to cars & trucks… the price ends in magical number NINE.

Now do you think that’s by accident?  Of course not… or I wouldn’t mention it.

Pricing Magic

Last time we talked about the magic of choice and the number three.

This time we’re going to talk about the magic of Nine versus Zero. Of course I’m going to hit you with a study – so here we go.

There have been quite a few studies on this sweet spot/charm price phenomenon.  (Psst – Mr. William Poundstone covers this and more in his book Priceless).

The one I’m going to talk about was done by the University of Chicago and MIT and involved a mail order catalog.

Here’s what they did. They printed THREE catalogues and sent them to identical sample group sizes and the catalogues themselves where identical with one except, the price points.

In the experiment the women’s clothing item tested normally sold for $39 but they also offered the same item for $34 and $44.

As I am sure you have already guessed… the charmed price of $39 outsold the others, including the lower $34 price point.

Again, predictably irrational… although 34 is less than 39, people gravitate to the number (just about any number) ending in nine.

Further, studies have found that when using the charmed pricing ending in nine, sales can increase by 24% compared to the rounded pricing using zero.

Pricing Roulette… Has To Stop

So now you have no excuse.  You’ve come this far with me and now know that you could be missing out on a 24% sales increase because you’re using the wrong numbers in your pricing.

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Not sure I’m right?  Let me hear it in the comments below.

Want to learn more about pricing and packaging your products and services for profit?  Join me in The Blueprint: Your Guide To Profitable Pricing & Packaging.