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Cause-related marketing (CRM) campaigns have become common features of the marketplace. CRM often involves a for-profit business agreeing to contribute a specified amount to a cause when the business’s customers engage in revenue-generating exchanges. Despite the central role that price is likely to play in a consumer’s decision to purchase or not to purchase an offer associated with a CRM campaign, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, very few have examined price framing effects in a CRM context. This paper aims to explore the effect of rightmost digits manipulation in prices on participation intentions for CRM campaigns.

In Study 1, 241 college students participated in an online experiment for class credit. The experiment used a 3 (price level: low, medium and high) × 2 (price ending: 99 ending and no ending) between-subjects design. The dependent variable was participation intention, and several moderators and mediators were considered. PROCESS was used to test the moderated mediation. In Study 2, 351 subjects participated in an online experiment with a design similar to the earlier study. In Study 2, however, new mediators were added and the moderated mediation was tested using SPSS PROCESS macro.

This research shows that price ending impacts the effectiveness of CRM as a tactic on consumers’ purchase intentions. Consistent with the authors’ prediction, this study shows that consumers exposed to a 99-ending CRM offer are more likely to participate in the offer compared to consumers exposed to a no-ending priced offer. Offer attractiveness, elaboration and corporate social responsibility were also shown to have a strong effect on participation intentions.

This research indicates that for moderately priced products, 99-ending prices led to an increased influence on consumer purchase intentions; on the other hand, no-ending/even-ending prices were more effective for high-priced products. Thus, the use of the right digit effect by managers in a CRM context as way of increasing consumers’ participation likelihood is likely to be more successful for moderately priced offers.

This research extends previous work on CRM and right digit effect in pricing. This study’s findings, in both Studies 1 and 2, demonstrate that the effectiveness of CRM campaigns on consumer choice is dependent on the offer price ending. Consumers exposed to the no-ending priced CRM offers tend to be affected less by CRM campaigns compared to consumers exposed to 99-ending offers, who perceive the offer as more attractive.

The current study investigates odd-even psychological pricing with the aid of a Price endings and Consumer Behavior (PCBM) Model for the hospitality industry. The PCBM proposes that a reciprocal relationship exists between hospitality marketers and consumers with reference to 00 and 99 price ending practices. Theoretical support for the posited model is provided by signaling theory, a persuasion knowledge model (PKM), and learning by analogy from marketing and psychology literatures. Results indicate that consumers use intuition and knowledge gained from interacting in the retail marketplace to respond to the intentions of hospitality marketers’ odd-even psychological pricing strategy. After repeated exposures to odd-even pricing, consumers learn to accept the 00 and 99 pricing endings as extrinsic cues for quality and value and as pricing norms of the hospitality industry.

This paper aims to explore not only the utilitarian but also the hedonic persuasive effects of promotional techniques like 99-ending prices and the influence of consumers’ decision style when evaluating these appeals. Evidence suggests that retailers use 99-ending prices as a promotional technique, based mostly on its savings appeal.

Three complementary studies were performed. A first field study among 317 shoppers allows to test the hypotheses for two groups of decision-makers (intuitive and analytical) using structural equation modeling based on the partial least squares algorithm. Then, a laboratory experiment assigned to 123 respondents manipulates the decision-making style and, in turn, tests more precisely the proposed hypotheses. Finally, the third study replicates the laboratory experiment with 104 respondents without manipulating decision-making; rather it is measured, which allows to test the effect of internal-based versus contextual-based decision style.

First, the 99-ends are not strictly associated to utilitarian benefits (savings, quality or convenience) but also to hedonic benefits fulfilling consumer’s needs for exploration, value expression and entertainment. Second, a better understanding of the moderating role of the decision-making style is obtained: consumers in an intuitive decision mode give importance only to hedonic benefits; and there are differences in the analytical decision mode: when the decision-making style is internal (measured as a personal trait), consumers give importance to both utilitarian and hedonic benefits; however, when the decision-making style is contextual (manipulated), consumers focus only on utilitarian benefits.

It is necessary to check the robustness of the results depending on other marketing variables (e.g. product category knowledge, purchase frequency) and individual consumers’ differences in price-sensitivity (e.g. price consciousness).

The findings help to better understand the image effect of 99-ends underlying both consumers’ individual differences and contextual effects. Findings also help retailers and pricing managers in their use of 99-ends as a promotional technique.

This research contributes to a better understanding of the persuasive promotional effect associated to 99-ends. The study demonstrates that utilitarian benefits cannot fully explain consumers’ responses to 99-ends, as 99-end prices can also provide stimulation, entertainment and help fulfill consumers’ needs for information, exploration and self-esteem. The authors further examine the moderating role of the decision-making style between promotional benefits and proneness to buy 99-ends products. The intuitive mode, either internal or contextual, activates hedonic benefits, whereas the analytical mode activates both utilitarian and hedonic benefits when the mode of processing is internal and only utilitarian benefits when the mode of processing is contextual.

Although it has been proposed that recall processes play a role in the retail sales effects of 9‐ending pricing, substantial effects of price endings on the level of recalled prices has not been demonstrated. With an improved testing procedure, it is found that the level of a set of prices with low ending digits (such as 1 or 2 in the dollars place) is more likely to be overestimated in recall than the level of equivalent sets of prices with high ending digits (such as 6, 7, or 9 in the dollars place). The results of the study support the role of left‐to‐right processing of price information and point out some consequences for retailers of the use of low numbers in price‐ending digits.

The aim of this paper is to understand the price‐ending strategies in European restaurants and make practical suggestions to the managers.

Data were collected from restaurant menus in three European countries. Results were compared with those of USA and Taiwan.

The price‐ending strategies of European restaurants are distinctly different from those of the USA and, interestingly, have more in common with those of Taiwan.

The small sample size is a concern. Data were limited to three countries. Inclusion of more European restaurants is highly desired, especially with the Euro as a common currency.

Restaurant companies could have better understanding of the impact of cultural differences, while implementing price‐ending strategies.

This paper presents a case where cultural differences are of significant economic value in setting restaurant menu prices. In Europe, dining out is considered more a cultural activity than a utilitarian participation. The historical roots of the usage of digit zero in a European context are presented here.

Using adaptation‐level theory as a conceptual framework, the purpose of this research is to determine what effect, if any, marketplace conditioning has on consumer price estimates and product evaluations.

A total of 475 subjects participated in two experiments that required them to read a scenario, evaluate a series of advertised products, and perform an aided price recall task.

The results suggest consumers are more likely to recall the correct price when more of the rightmost digits end in 0 or 9. Moreover, when prices are incorrectly recalled, consumers are likely to inadvertently assume prices end in commonly used rightmost digits (i.e. 5 and 9). Combined, the results demonstrate odd pricing effects are likely a result of marketplace price conditioning rather than truncation of rightmost digits as suggested by the analog model of numerical cognition.

Findings suggest that use of atypical rightmost digits in odd prices fails as a method to differentiate products in the mind of the consumer. This would explain the use of larger right ending digits by retailers in an effort to maximize profit without impacting consumer perceptions of quality, value, and purchase likelihood. In the absence of strong quality image effects, retailers are encouraged to continue the practice of setting prices with digits ending in 9.

A key theoretical implication of this study is that the underestimation heuristic based on leftmost digit processing fails to explain the results of the incorrectly recalled price estimates. As a result, adaptation‐level theory may provide a more robust explanation for odd pricing effects.

This study aims to analyse the use of psychological pricing in online food retailing. In stationary grocery shops, psychological prices with nine-endings have been a well-documented phenomenon for many decades. However, little is known about the relevance of this pricing practice in the growing grocery e-commerce sector.

The authors investigate the frequency of nine-ending prices at Amazon Fresh for more than 10,000 products from May 2019 until March 2020 for the customer location Berlin, Germany. Applying a within–between logit model, the authors identify the determinants for the use of nine-ending prices.

The authors find that more than 70% of all prices end in the digit 9. This indicates that Amazon Fresh applies psychological pricing to a similar degree as traditional offline grocers. Nine-ending prices are more likely for so-called “want” products such as snacks and sweets than for “should” products such as fruits and vegetables. Also, psychological price endings are used less for products with a higher price level and for products with temporary sales promotions.

This study is the first to analyse psychological pricing practices for the world's largest online food retailer Amazon Fresh. The study results contrast with most previous empirical and theoretical studies, which suggest that the use of psychological prices would decline in an online context.

This study used choice modelling to estimate the effect of odd pricing on the demand for three products: a $4 can of fly spray, a $7 block of cheese, and a $50 electric kettle, with each product represented by three different brands. For cheese and fly spray a significant odd‐price effect was observed at 99 cents but not at 95 cents, whereas for the electric kettles a significant odd‐price effect occurred at 95 cents but not at 99 cents. The estimated value of the odd‐pricing effect ranged from 4 cents for fly spray, to 6 cents for cheese, to $3.18 for the kettles. The results of the study provide empirical support for the assumption that odd pricing generates greater‐than‐expected demand, at least at the individual brand level, and for the common practice of setting retail prices that end in 95 cents or 99 cents.

Although findings have been inconsistent, there is some evidence from both experimental studies and field research that prices set just below the nearest round figure produce higher than expected demand at that level. Other research has demonstrated that the organization of verbal and/or pictorial elements of a print advertisement can influence the persuasive impact of that ad. The author combines these two streams of research in examining preference for brands associated with 0‐ versus 9‐ending prices that are displayed in different advertising layouts. Results indicate that the higher than expected demand associated with 9‐ending prices is more likely when prices are placed to the left of attended verbal information contained in an ad, due to the more positive evaluations of price that occur with more efficient subconscious processing.

Presents the findings of a study designed to investigate the effect of odd pricing on respondents’ purchase probabilities for six products ranging in price from $5 to $100. The products tested were a block of cheese, a frozen chicken, a box of chocolates, a hair dryer, an electric kettle and a food blender, and the data were collected in a mall intercept of 300 household shoppers. For each product a demand curve was estimated and the differences between expected and actual purchase probabilities at each odd price level examined. For all six products, demand was higher than expected at one or both of the odd price points tested. This effect was particularly marked for the lower‐priced food items (cheese, chicken and chocolates) and for prices ending in the digit 9. Provides support for the assumption that odd pricing generates greater than expected demand and for the common practice of setting retail prices which end in 99 cents or $99.