The Reason So Many Prices End in .99

为什么商品价格都以”.99”结尾

With chip readers, auto-reload apps, and one-click online purchasing, it's only too easy to buy something without fully registering how much it costs. That said, even if you're not counting out nickels and dimes for the cashier these days, you've probably still noticed how often prices end in .99.

随着芯片阅读器、自动加载APP和一键在线购买的诞生，人们很容易就能买到东西，而不需要完全记录到它的价格。也就是说，即使如今你不用数五分和一角的硬币给收银员，你可能仍会注意到价格经常以”.99”结尾。

Maybe you assumed it had something to do with tax laws, or else it was a leftover practice from decades ago, when things cost less and pennies mattered more. In fact, it's actually a clever psychological tool that tricks your brain into thinking the price of an item is lower.

也许你认为这与税法有关，或者这是几十年前留下的传统，那时东西更便宜，几分钱也显得很重要。事实上，它是一种巧妙的心理工具，让你的大脑认为一件商品的价格更低。

“Because we read from left to right, we pay less attention to the end of the number versus the beginning,” consumer analyst Julie Ramhold told Reader's Digest. So, for example, your mind will interpret $9.99 as $9, though it's obviously much closer to $10.

的消费者分析师Julie Ramhold在接受《读者文摘》采访时说：“因为我们习惯从左往右阅读，所以我们对数字结尾的关注要少于数字开头。”例如，你会把9.99美元理解为9美元，尽管它显然更接近10美元。

Just one dollar's difference might not seem like enough to drastically affect your decision on whether to buy something, but it can push an item into a lower price range—and that's enough to make your mind think it costs significantly less. To your subconscious brain, a one-digit price like $9 seems a lot cheaper than a two-digit price like $10.

仅仅一美元的区别似乎不足以彻底影响你决定是否购买某样东西，但它可以把一件商品归于一个更低的价格区间——这足以让你认为它的成本明显更低。在你的潜意识里，9美元这样的一位数价格似乎比10美元这样的两位数价格便宜得多。

Though ending prices in 9 might be the norm, there is a fair amount of variation when it comes to retailers' pricing tactics. Live Science reports that because we often perceive a price ending in 9 as a cheap deal, some stores—like J.Crew and Ralph Lauren—save the nines for their sale items, and use numbers ending in 0 for their full-priced items, giving the impression that those items are high-quality. Thrift stores, on the other hand, often use whole numbers for all their products.

虽然以9结尾的价格可能是一种常态，但在零售商的定价策略上存在相当大的差异。Live Science报道说，因为我们经常认为以9结尾的价格是便宜货，一些商店如J.Crew和Ralph Lauren常把以9结尾的价格留作特价商品，全价商品的价格以0结尾，给人以高质量的印象。另外，二手商店的所有商品的价格通常都是整数。

翻译：MS小冰晶