Make Sale Prices Look Different

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:

• Color. Try a red price (Puccinelli et al., 2013).
• Digit Type. Change the price from round to precise (e.g., $49 to $38.63; Kim et al., 2023; Peev, & Mayer, 2017).
• Font Family. Ugly fonts can enhance good deals because customers spend more time and effort reading them, forcing them to notice the steep discount (Motyka et al., 2016).
• Font Size. Your price should be a smaller or larger font: Large fonts convey a good product, while small fonts convey a good deal (Aggarwal & Vaidyanathan, 2016; Bhattacharyya et al., 2023).

• 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.