Does anyone know if 19.95 actually sells better, to me it seams they are the same thing, but if multi-billion dollar companies are selling full computers for $1,995 instead of $2000 it would seam there is some subliminal message there.

Also, I know alot of you are going to say that 19.95 has a 1 as the first digit, therefore looks smaller, but do you have any actual proof of if that effects buying?

I am still working on my first game, so I cant give you hard facts. But, I talked extensively with a friend about this while shopping.

Ask someone how much they paid for something. It is never 19.99 or 48.99. They tend to round it off: $20 or $50. In a customer's mind, when they see 19.95, but interpret it as $20. Because of that, I dont think 19.95 looks cheaper.

The only advantage I see of making a product 19.95 or 19.99 is that it is the status quo. Thats how prices are displayed at almost every store you go to. Making your price 19.99 makes the shopping experience familiar (on a subconscious level). When people feel comfortable while shopping, they tend to spend more money.

Overall, I doubt you would notice a sales increase or decrease. I have never decided not to purchase a product because it was a few cents too expensive.

If you're buying online, the price you tend to look at (if you're in another country to the seller) is the conversion price.

I price my game at $20 even, and it has been selling nicely. I do not think that it makes very much difference (if any). If you look at other posts people are talking about switching prices from 19.99 to 14.99 or something, and the effects are not huge even for that difference.

I don't know, but if BIG companys with BIG marketing teams do that, I'll do it too. :)

Fèlix
www.nurium.com

I've read a lot of pricing strategy guides that tell you that 19.9x sells 10-20% better than 20.00. Unfortunately, few guides say why. Psychological Pricing (http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/psychological%20pricing) offers some explanations, but not convincing ones. Perhaps the best being: Now that consumers are used to psychological prices, other prices look odd.

An interesting side-note:
Historically the practice of odd pricing was developed primarily to control employee theft. For cash transactions with an odd price, most consumers must be given change. Creating change requires the employee to open the cash register, recording the sale. This reduces the risk of stealing from the shop owner by not recording the sale and pocketing the money.

I've been manning a vendor booth that sells t-shirts for about a year now and I've noticed some things within that venue:

$19.95 isn't much better than $20. Everybody rounds to 20.

$17.95 works. I've had dozens of people give me $17 to pay for a $17.95 shirt and be quite stunned they had to pay an extra dollar. I've heard others go tell friends across the way that we sell shirts for $17. So that works, but I'm not convinced $19.95 works. That one's just too easy to round up to $20 I guess.

- Air

I've read a lot of pricing strategy guides that tell you that 19.9x sells 10-20% better than 20.00. Unfortunately, few guides say why. Psychological Pricing (http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/psychological%20pricing) offers some explanations, but not convincing ones. Perhaps the best being: Now that consumers are used to psychological prices, other prices look odd.

An interesting side-note:

Thats a great explanation!

the perceived value of all the numbers between 1 and 100 were studied and 77 was shown to have the lowest perceived value relative to its actual value.

For some reason, I find that amusing.

It does have basis in study. I remember reading a long time ago that even if the mind does round it up to $20, it doesn't FEEL like $20 when the mind sees $19.95 or whatever.

It's the subliminal difference between a $20 purchase and an under-$20 purchase ... a small difference, but significant.

It's more likely to be so you can say you product "is under 20 bucks" whereas you can't if the price is dead on 20.

Also, I think its 19.95 and not 19.99 as people don't actually want coppers in their change, or at least that applies in UK currency. I know Americans seem to have a cultural dislike of coins vs paper at all, so I'm guessing theres a lot of charity/tip boxes at the checkout anyway ?

US has sales tax on top of the prices at the checkout and mostly can't do the math in our heads, so we're not really sure WHAT the total comes to, and 19.95 isn't any more helpful than 19.99. They do have little saucers by the cash register at a lot of places to dump the pennies from your change into, or fish some out and add to the money you give the cashier if you're just a few cents under.

Buying something in the UK, you know exactly what it costs and can much more easily fish out exact change before getting to the register.

Odd Pricing is something we learn all about in marketing class.

There are many reasons to use it or disuse it in relation to what type of product you move, in addition to what has already been mentioned.

Many places use them as an inventory control mechanism.

Find a store that has multiple odd price points, such as 19.99, 19.97 and 19.95. When you see that in a retail store it means they are using odd pricing to tell management or employees something about the product. Usually it goes like this.

.99 is retail price
.95 is discount price (a sale item)
.97 is a discontinued item or clearance.

Odd pricing should pretty much always be used, it does make a mental difference to people, in my experience, that they actually do believe the product is 19 dollars instead of 20. Instances where it should not be used are noted as high volume items or low-change stations, or low-cost items.

For instance: Eggs are both high volume and low cost. If an egg manufacturer produces 10,000 dozen eggs per day, a .01 difference in cost means 36,000 dollars a year in profit loss. Also, places where you don't want to end up giving out lots of change, where speed and convinence are keys, you sometimes see people price for tax inclusion in the US. For instance, something is .94 cents, so that when you add tax it is exactly 1.00.

I see no reason, in video games, you should avoid the odd price. You dont sell enough volume for it to make a difference in profit.

Consider buying a car:

price: $100 000
or
price: $99 852

$100 000 looks much more expensive.

it's also a fact, that you whatever price range you choose you should have maximum benefit from the scale.

for example: $100 500 car can be sold with $109 700 (and you can take that extra $9200, and you should)

same goes with games:

$20.00
or
$19.90

$20.00 looks kind of expensive (hey, it's 20 bucks! but $19 is only 19 bucks...)

anyway - whatever price you will choose I'd recommend you to test different prices. You just might hit the sweetspot on first strike, but on the other hand - you might not :)

I really dont think it will make much of a difference, I always found it easier when buying something that was $20.00 just because it seems easier in the brain.

I really dont think it will make much of a difference, I always found it easier when buying something that was $20.00 just because it seems easier in the brain.

That's true too :)