Ninety Nine, have you come across any product or services which only cost 199 or 99. It’s just one number less to a whole number. This is psychological pricing it is a part of marketing strategy which messes your brain out. This strategy is seen mostly in retail outlets and works like a charm. In the real world when we see this kind of pricing. Our brain immediately associates the price to lower numeric group. 199 belongs to 100-199 group, 299 belongs to 200-299 group. Even though 199 and 299 are closer to 200 and 300 respectively.
The two main reasons why businesses do such ninety-nine. Firstly, they want to make your brain believe that the product or service you are buying is not cheap. Let’s take an example of a camera whose maximum retail price is 2679/- now if the business puts it on heavy discount lets say 2412/-. Our brains question us why is there a huge discount is the product defective or is the product old. If the company puts up the price as 2599/- or 2499/- our brain immediately tells us that it is an offer and not a discounted product.
Secondly, with the ninety-nine, have you come across any product or services which only cost 199 or 99. It’s just one number less to a whole number. they do not want you to feel that you are been cheated or asked for higher earlier this would ultimately affect the brand value. From the earlier example a product or service sold at 2679/- is now being sold at 1252/- the brain of customers who bought it at higher prices would never come back to the same brand again. They immediately feel cheated by the business.
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