1. Should you round prices — and if so, how?

Modified on Wed, 30 Jul at 2:01 PM

Which product price will increase sales in your store—100 PLN or 99.99 PLN?

Accustomed to the omnipresent “just below” prices, we might subconsciously assume that the second option is better. However, it turns out that for certain products, not rounding the price is not always the best choice.

According to a 2015 study^[1], rounded prices work better for emotional, spontaneous purchases (e.g., a chocolate bar at checkout or ice cream in the park). For consumers, such prices feel “right” in the context of emotionally driven purchases. On the other hand, for rational purchases, non-rounded prices are more convincing because they appear to offer better value.

The theory divides pricing strategies as follows:

Rational purchases – non-rounded price (e.g., 9.99 PLN)

Emotional purchases – rounded price (e.g., 30 or 50 PLN)

However, we must also consider customer habits. Increasingly, fully rounded prices seem strange, artificially inflated, or rounded up^[2]. So how can we reconcile this?

You don't have to round prices to full tens or hundreds. Removing the grosze (pennies) significantly shortens the price, which—especially for emotionally driven purchases—feels more appropriate to the customer’s brain.

If you're selling a product that’s an emotional purchase, consider setting the price at 29 PLN instead of 29.99 PLN.

If you're selling a product that’s a rational purchase, it’s better to set the price at 29.99 PLN rather than 29 PLN.

^[1] Wadhwa & Zhang, 2015
^[2] Janiszewski & Uy, 2008