Consumers respond more favorably to prices that they mentally encode as a â€œfluent numberâ€ | Selling

fbusoni · 2025-03-26T11:31:32.748000Z

I was thinking last night about changing the endings of my prices from .99 to various random numbers (.31, .54, etc.) just to see if doing so would make a difference in terms of buyer response. Then I stumbled across the interesting write up (copied and pasted below) which talks about how consumers perceive the numbers on each side of the decimal point. I've never given much thought to "numerate consumers" and wonder what others think of this research, or if any sellers here have any direct experience in attempting to assess what they think buyers are likely to focus on -- specifically with respect the findings below. Thanks. Begin text of abstract: 1. Consumers respond more favorably to prices that they mentally encode as a â€œfluent numberâ€ Fluency refers to the ease with which a stimulus (e.g., a number) is processed by the brain. Building on prior research, I found that consumers respond more favorably to certain prices because they contain or border â€œfluent numbers.â€ The consumer finds these numbers familiar and easy to decipher because they have been practiced in childhood arithmetic education, they inherently exclude prime numbers, and because of the natural frequency with which they are encountered in daily life. Examples of fluent numbers include 16, 18 and 20 (in contrast to 13, 17 and 19, which are less fluent). 2. Highly numerate consumers tend to round 99-ending prices up, while less numerate consumers tend to drop the .99, focusing only on the left digits The results of one eye tracking experiment show that less numerate individuals â€“ those less comfortable with numbers â€“ looked primarily at the left digits of prices, while highly numerate individuals â€“ those more comfortable with numbers â€“ focused on the whole price. Highly numerate consumers spent more time looking at the right digits of prices than less numerate consumers. As a result, highly numerate consumers responded more favorably to 99-ending prices that border a fluent number (e.g., $17.99, $19.99), while less numerate consumers responded more favorably to 99-ending prices that contain fluent left-digits (e.g., $16.99 or $18.99) 3. Managers can customize their prices based on consumer numeracy (using average education level as a reasonable proxy) to maximize consumer price responseTo optimize prices for highly numerate individuals, managers should price objects at 99-ending prices that border fluent numbers. To optimize prices for less numerate individuals, managers should price objects at 99-ending prices that contain fluent left digits. For example, if a retailer determined the average willingness to pay for a product to be around $17, they could optimize the price for less numerate consumers by charging $16.99, while highly numerate individuals would respond more favorably to $17.99. Conversely, if the average willingness to pay was determined to be around $18, less numerate consumers would respond most favorably to $18.99, while highly numerate consumers would respond most favorably to $17.99. Note: A fluent base price like $18.99 that is preferred by less numerate consumers can be higher or lower than a fluent neighbor price, such as $17.99 or $19.99, that is preferred by highly numerate consumers. End text.

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Consumers respond more favorably to prices that they mentally encode as a â€œfluent numberâ€ | Selling | eBay Community