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The origin of "99 cents"

I find that there are disproportionately many price tags that say $3.95, $69.99, $198, etc. See amazon.com for example. I suppose the sellers do this because they are hoping that it will attract disproportionately more buyers than tagging it $4, $70, or $200, while actually the prices are not much different. Has there been a study that confirm this assumption?

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Louis Rhys
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  • Having just spent a couple weeks in the EU, they don't do that. What a blessing! In the US we have all these stupid coins people won't even bother to bend over and pick up. – Mike Dunlavey Aug 19 '11 at 12:59
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    @Mike: where have you been? It's very common in Italy and France for sure. – nico Aug 19 '11 at 13:06
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    In Germany, too. – cularis Aug 19 '11 at 13:11
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    Whenever a salesperson tells me something ends with ".99" (or ".95," etc.) I always round it up. To $29.99 my response is "oh, you mean $30" to which they sometimes look confused, or will even reply with "no, it's $29.99" -- rarely they'll agree with me (despite having no trouble agreeing with any other comments I make about what their product can do). I've overheard people buying a new car fall for this little pricing tactic, referring to price tags like "$29,998" as "$29,000" or even $20,000." It's truly amazing how effective it can be. – Randolf Richardson Aug 19 '11 at 14:19
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    @Randolf The worst part about cars is they tack on all these fees that you have no idea where they came from but most of them just go into their pocket but that is another topic. – Chad Aug 19 '11 at 16:21
  • @Chad: It's really terrible. I find that after finalizing the price, walking out the door seems to result in the sales person running out to me in the parking lot and telling me they can get those "last-minute unexpected fees" waived -- for this, I give him/her a deadline of "you've got 2 minutes to make this right before I drive away" with a pissed off look on my face (because I hate scammers), which usually works. They really should be up-front about the price in my very strong opinion on this matter. – Randolf Richardson Aug 19 '11 at 17:18
  • @nico: I was in Greece. (I know they spend too much and collect too little, but I still have to say they were a pleasant people to visit.) – Mike Dunlavey Aug 19 '11 at 18:20
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    My favorite is Gasoline $3.49.9 how nuts is that, its like the Oil companies wanted to one up all the other retailers. I have been rounding so long, it my brain does it automatically, makes adding up what I have in my basket much easier. – Moab Aug 20 '11 at 04:23

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