$50 original price with $25 sale price that has different font, size, and color
Make Sale Prices Look Different
Price Design

Make Sale Prices Look Different

A visual difference feels like a numerical difference.

When two things look different, they feel different.

That's why infomercials show problems in grayscale, yet solutions in vibrant color. This visual difference feels like a semantic difference: Hmm, looks different. Guess it will make a big difference in my life.

Same with prices: Hmm, this sale price feels different. Must be a great deal.

Distinguish a Sale Price By:

Graph that shows sale prices convert better when visually larger than original price

  • Aggarwal, P., & Vaidyanathan, R. (2016). Is font size a big deal? A transaction–acquisition utility perspective on comparative price promotions. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 33(6), 408-416.
  • Bhattacharyya, A., Jha, S., Guha, A., & Biswas, A. (2023). Should firms display the sale price using larger font?. Journal of Retailing, 99(1), 17-25.
  • Coulter, K. S., & Coulter, R. A. (2005). Size does matter: The effects of magnitude representation congruency on price perceptions and purchase likelihood. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 15(1), 64-76.
  • Kim, J., Jhang, J., Kim, S., & Stylidis, D. (2023). The impact of Price preciseness, Price reduction, and lay rationalism on travelers’ perceptions of deal attractiveness, purchase intention, and choice. Journal of Travel Research, 62(7), 1550-1568.
  • Liang, S., Dong, X., Yan, Y., & Chang, Y. (2021). The influence of the inconsistent color presentation of the original price and sale price on purchase likelihood. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 603754.
  • Mead, J. A., & Hardesty, D. M. (2018). Price font disfluency: Anchoring effects on future price expectations. Journal of Retailing, 94(1), 102-112.
  • Motyka, S., Suri, R., Grewal, D., & Kohli, C. (2016). Disfluent vs. fluent price offers: Paradoxical role of processing disfluency. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 44, 627-638.
  • Peev, P. P., & Mayer, J. M. (2017). Consumer perceptions of precise vs. just-below prices in retail settings. Journal of Promotion Management, 23(5), 673-688.
  • Puccinelli, N. M., Chandrashekaran, R., Grewal, D., & Suri, R. (2013). Are men seduced by red? The effect of red versus black prices on price perceptions. Journal of Retailing, 89(2), 115-125.
  • Shoham, M., Moldovan, S., & Steinhart, Y. (2018). Mind the gap: How smaller numerical differences can increase product attractiveness. Journal of Consumer Research, 45(4), 761-774.

Want more tactics?

Get all my free pricing tactics