Sparker |
99.8% silly pricing |
[ September 29, 2005 ] |
Have you ever notices the liberal use of decimal points in prices? All my life I have been seeing things like $4.95 and $3.99. When the 1c and 2c coins were removed from circulation, the .99 went a way (mostly), to be replaced by .95. But why do we have these?
My Former Primary Caregiver worked in a shop when she was young (which was a little while ago, now), and she explained that the reason for the non-whole numbers was that it forced the assistants to open the till. This way the sale was recorded, and they couldn't pocket the money. This was well before the day of the bare code scanner and receipts being printed, so this seemed reasonable. These days this excuse really doesn't hold water. It also doesn't explain car prices like $38,990. Surely no-one is really concerned that a care salesman is going to pocket $40,000 and rip off everyone.... Maybe that was a bad example,
So the reason for the stupidity in pricing is purely psychological. It is believed that the average person (which means you and I) would rather buy something priced $4.95 than something priced $5. Well, maybe I'm feeling a little non-average, but that is simply not true for me. I don't look at $4.95 and see a low number, where I see $5.00 as small. To me, they are the same. So, please Mr. and Mrs. shop owners. Stop it!!! (I'm sure some Proud's representative will pop on to explain why they don't follow this horrid practice and that I should do all my shopping with them... Sorry, I went off topic).
Which brings me to the most stupid use off the decimal point: petrol prices. What the f*ck is that all about. 49.5c. And if it wasn't bad enough when the prices were below 30c, now it is just plain stupid. What does 121.6c mean? (yes, I know it means $1 26.6c, that was a rhetorical question). Who are they trying to kid? No-one else in normal retail life uses fractions of a cent. So why does the petrol industry? Does anyone care. Could we stop it now, please?
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