As you may have noticed, the quantity and quality of posts has suffered since my writers have gone on strike. But like The A Daily Show, we’re back. Fittingly, when Jon Stewart returned to the studio last week, he had … Read More
retail pricing
Price of 12 Days of Christmas hits all-time high
According to PNC, the price of the “12 Days of Christmas” (Christmas Price Index, or CPI) rose 3.1%, driven by the rising price of gold and the minimum wage hike, which increased the cost of maids-a-milking. The total cost of … Read More
Unbundling the food and the seat
No, we’re not talking about airlines, we’re talking about restaurants. People in Europe are used to this already, but as an American visiting the UK recently, it was slightly surprising to see different prices for food and drink consumed on … Read More
Promotion Addiction
One of the challenges of using promotions effectively is that the more successful they seem initially, the more detrimental they can be over the long run. The reason is that the condition buyers to wait for promotions. Instead of drawing … Read More
Who can sell $300 socks?
There’s an interesting article over at Fast Company on The Inevitability of $300 Socks, which talks about the formerly incredible notion of paying $300 for jeans. Remember when $50 jeans were “designer”? The authors, Dan and Chip Heath, argue that … Read More
Reference prices
An alert reader sent in an article from the Wall Street Journal (free for one week) called The Psychology of the $14,000 Handbag, which delves into why stores offer, well, $14,000 handbags, and what this means for the rest of … Read More
5 Ways NOT to do Promotions
From Mental Floss, here are 5 Ballpark Promotions that Went Wrong. Example number 1: 10-cent beer night.
The Math of Multiple Discounts
Recent research by Akshay Rao and Haipeng Chen confirms that people have a hard time processing a sequence of percentage discounts. For example, if you have a $100 item at 20% off, and then take another 20% off, what is … Read More
Blockbuster Goes after Netflix with Pricing
Punished by the the popularity of cheap DVDs, video-on-demand, and the Netflix DVD-rental-by-mail service, Blockbuster announced further price cuts on its subscription plans. These plans allow consumers to rent and return videos at stores or by mail. The added ability … Read More
Barker to Retire from “The Price Is Right”
Some light news for a Friday afternoon: TV show host Bob Barker will retire from “The Price is Right” after 35 years.