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A TikToker recently posted her displeasure at price ticketing in a grocery store. The deal was “any 2 for $11”, but thanks to the format of the price ticketing, at a glance it looked like $11 was the price per item.

While I wholeheartedly agree, that’s not the only mistake the retailer made, because according to new research, they could have sold more had the price been $12 rather than $11. Here’s why.

Price divisibility

Bundle offers are a common...

Attempting to fill my van’s water tanks while driving through outback South Australia, I discovered my hose attachment was too small for the tap. 

I made my way to the local shop and started rifling through their hose fittings selection. A fellow traveller passed me in the aisle, paused, and asked me what I was looking for. I explained the situation, showing him the attachment I had brought with me.

“May I?”, he asked, taking the hose attachment from me.

He then...

I’ll never forget visiting Brisbane in winter. 

As a Melburnian I packed light, shedding layers as the northern sun warmed my bones.

Around me, locals swarmed, clutching coffees and swathed in puffer jackets.

When you’re used to 12 degrees, 19 degrees feels warm.

When you’re used to 25 degrees, it doesn’t.

Our experience of temperature is relative. 

So is pricing.

Things are only expensive or cheap depending on context.

Repairing my heater for $250 is...

You are special. I know you are.

So am I, of course. There’s no one like me.

We think we’re unique, us humans. That no one sees the world quite like we do.

‘That may apply to other people’, we think, ‘but not me.’

But it doesn’t mean, as a species, we don’t follow patterns. That our behaviour isn’t predictable.

Case in point, we all tend to react to psychological thresholds.

Imagine you are running a marathon, for example....

How do you get a customer to reveal their budget?

Some customers are reticent to share their budget, either because they don't have one or they don't want to be oversold. So how can you price yourself?

More about Just Do This: https://www.briwilliams.com/about-just-do-this 

When it comes to pricing options, how different should the prices be?

Should your most expensive option be a little bit pricier than the middle option, or a lot?

Should your cheapest option be super low, or closer to the middle?

In this video, behavioural expert Bri Williams shares how to price your product options to influence customers to buy.

More about Just Do This: www.briwilliams.com/about-just-do-this

Once the dominant streaming service, Netflix is haemorrhaging subscribers, losing market share to the likes of Disney Plus, YouTube and Amazon Prime.  

To shore up revenue, they have rolled the dice on a new ad supported "Basic" option.

Is this a good move?

That depends on the behaviour they are seeking to displace. Presumably this is an acquisition rather than retention strategy. 

That means they are seeking to win customers from streaming competitors,...

Are you part of a distributed team? Perhaps you manage one?

It's new language, isn't it, distributed team? It means that colleagues who work together, don't physically work together. They're scattered around the state, the country, the world.

It's not quite the same as "remote work", where you and your colleagues might work remotely from your office some or all the time, but there is still a central office.

For distributed teams, there is no central office so everyone works remotely.

How to...

What's one of the biggest findings from behavioural science that people resist?

That terrifies them the most?

Sequencing prices from high to low.

It's much more common to see menus and websites listing goods from low to high.

Well, that's a problem because you're wasting every sale.

Researchers Suk, Lee and Lichtenstein, for example, found way back in 2011 that listing the most expensive beer first increased the average paid by 4% compared to listing in descending order.

So I know it might...

Ending your price with “9” is a tidbit of pricing psychology that has entrenched itself in business folklore. 

Why? Because $1999 seems better than $2000, and $12.99 better than $13.

But why does it seem better?

It may have a lot to do with the direction the digit is pointing. You see, 9 points to the left, as does 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7.

5 and 6 are right-facing whereas 0 and 8 are centered.

This digit-directionality (Coulter, 2007) is yet another consideration when it...