Why Prices Ending in .99 Are Fooling Your Brain

Why do all prices end in .99 and what is left-digit bias? In this video, we will be looking into a psychological marketing trick known as left-digit (or left-number bias). It can lead us to ignore or mentally drop-off the last digits of the number in order to focus on the first one. Hopefully by learning about this bias, you can become a smarter consumer!

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Additional Reading:
Penny Wise and Pound Foolish: The Left-Digit Effect in Price Cognition
Direct Evidence of Ending-Digit Drop-Off in Price Information Processing
The Left-Digit Effect: Why Game Prices End in .99

[drakeP]

It's not that we keep getting tricked into it but rather we just deal with it because its part of the norm

[Verårtu]

Left Digit Bias

Got it, thank you.

[sephxus]

I thought the original reason for doing this was so that the cashier doesn't pocket the bills. They are forced to open the cash register to give the customer change when it isn't an exact amount.

[introspection]

This has been a concerted attack against people with OCD and I am one of them

[lama_jamal]

I like your videos 👏🏻💕
But, what the name of application did u used it 🙃?

[RXDM-fq]

I thougth when it was that you need to pay 1 cent we wouldnt really care about the price and they get a profit of 1 cent and thar adds up quickly😅

[surronzak]

That worked in 2002 who falls for this or fake scarcity counter etc ? Seriously ?

[philjones]

This is utter nonsense. At one point in this video it suggests that when presented with a price of $2.99 and $4.00 you momentarily think that there's a $2 difference between them. There's no way that anyone would think that - without even thinking about it you would automatically see the $2.99 as equivalent to $3 (you can't stop yourself). And it's the same with the $5.99, $6.00, $6.01 example - there's no way that anyone sees the $5.99 as a dollar cheaper, even for a split second.

[caderedfield]

the should be laws against this 99 cents trickery, 😰 anyway, your welcome to go to that store for $499.99 or you can come to my store for $200.01