Thursday, August 16, 2007

7.49 < 5.69: The Right Digit Effect

Based on research from Coulter is appears that consumers experience price-discounts greater based on the right digits of the price even in cases where the overall price might be higher:

We use four experiments to examine consumers' processing of comparative regular and sale price information in advertisements. Consistent with our hypothesized right digit effect, we find that, when consumers view regular and sale prices with identical left digits, they perceive larger price discounts when the right digits are "small" (i.e., less than 5) than when they are "large" (i.e., greater than 5). As a result, they may attribute greater value and increased purchase likelihood to higher-priced, lower-discounted items. We examine alternate processing explanations for this right digit effect, as well as the moderating impact of price presentation format.

KEITH S. COULTER, Journal of consumer research

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