"Is 20 GBP a threshold? " Topic

This morning I noticed the prices of Osprey's Horizon Wars:
GBP 19.99 USD 30.00 CAD 35.00

Now I'm not concerned about the conversion rates, they seem reasonable for a moving target. But the .99 pricing interests me. It started with the belief (valid or not) that more people would buy a product if it was less than a round figure, despite the penny not being material (these days at least).

Is the message here that Osprey believes the US and Canada have cast off such marketing gullibility but the UK has not? That seems unlikely.

Or is GBP 20.00 a threshold for some sort of UK trade regulation or tax rule?

Just curious.

No trade regulation or tax rule that I know of…

They probably do think that we are daft enough to believe that it is £19.00 GBPish and not £20.00 GBP (and they may well still be right – petrol in the UK always seems to be at a price that ends .9p/litre).

A few years ago I bought a book from the Osprey stand at IPMS Model World at Telford. The very nice young lady said that they were rounding prices up that weekend and asked for the round number of pounds. I queried this, saying that I was a Yorkshireman and already felt guilty about not buying it at a local shop. She agreed to accept the price on the book provided I could give her the right money…

I was wondering about that round number, too.

If Osprey believes that, then they are pretty much alone within the group of people who sell stuff in the USA.

Pretty much every mainstream book in the UK has an X.99 price. As far as I'm aware it's the psychological trick of making £9.99 GBP seem less than £10.00 GBP

Some shops like GW have given up on the .99 ending as whole pounds makes cash handling from the banks cheaper as you aren't handling masses of low value coins. Often GW wouldn't have any pennies in the shop for change when they were still charging .99p.

I used to work in retail, and yes, the psychological trick works. Amazingly!

For psychological tricks…it was found that the key words to put on an envelope to get folks to open it is… DO NOT FOLD. If you are sending a bill, or an advert in an envelope stamp "Do Not Fold" on it and you will get a better response. That is because everyone wants to know what inside the envelope is not supposed to be folded. What is the delicate item?

Amazingly it did work. We had a 24% better response to bills stamped with "do not fold" then those that weren't.

My Comcast packages all end in $9.99 USD.
Gasoline prices are all n + 9/10.