9: the magic digit in consumer spending

Paris: Retailers’ belief that customers like a price ending in a nine rather than a rounded-up zero — 199.99 instead of 200.00, for instance — has been borne out by scientific research on a restaurant menu.
   Researchers from the University of Southern Brittany in Lorient, carried out a field study at a restaurant in Brittany, western France, where customers were given a limited choice of dishes (five pizzas, four of meat, three of fish and four salads). The team singled out the restaurant’s second most-popular pizza to see what happened over six weeks, when customers were faced with the option of a rounded-up price or a price ending in a nine.For the first two weeks, all the items on the menu had zero-ending prices. For the following fortnight, the price of the “target pizza” was brought down by one centime of a euro (1.58 of a US cent), to 7.99 euros (12.62), while the prices of the other dishes still ended in a zero. For the last two weeks, all the dishes had nine-ending prices. The popularity of the target pizza rose by around 15% during the test’s second phase. AGENCIES