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...And 99¢
- 164 statements
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When the screaming infomercial finally reaches the point of telling you the price you can be sure that price won't be a round number. Nothing will be sold for $10.00, $50.00 or $100.00. Every price will end with .95, .98 or .99. This trope isn't restricted to TV commercials. Real world pricing follows this trend as well, and has for a long time. Gas stations even go so far as to price gasoline in tenths of a cent, despite the obvious impossibility of paying in tenths of a cent. Wikipedia refers to this as "psychological pricing". This particular technique is known as "just-under pricing", and is a psychological tactic to make an item seem cheaper than it actually is. The premise is that people are usually mindless when doing their everyday business, and most advertisements and shopping places are specially designed to avoid having their customers become mindful and give as few cues as possible to wake up the viewer's consciousness; therefore, displaying a price of "$29.99" will, in theory, result in some people mistakingly reading "$20.00". In addition, making the most significant digit smaller (or removing an entire digit, if the price is an exact power of 10) also makes the price look less intimidating; "$9999", therefore, subconsciously looks smaller than "$10000" for the sole reason that the former price has 4 figures and the latter has 5. Another theory says this method of pricing was originally designed to prevent cashiers from pocketing payments. A price ending with .99 almost guarantees that the cashier will need to open the register to get change, which then logs the sale in the register. This trope also plays an advantage for the retailer in countries like Japan, South Korea, Chile or Colombia, where one unit of their currency has a very small purchasing power (as of 24 May 2020, 1 USD can be respectively exchanged for 107 yen, 1242 won, 809 Chilean pesos or 3775 Colombian pesos). Simply sell a pack of rice for $32,990 Colombian pesos (about 9 US dollars), receive $33,000 Colombian pesos as payment, pocket the whole money because the smallest coin is worth 50 COP and thus returning 10 COP of change is physically impossible, repeat 38 thousand times (which can easily happen in a single day if you're a big box supermarket), and voilà — 100 free US dollars worth of undelivered change. The trope has become so prevalent and ingrained that people automatically round prices up in their heads... even if it is a flat price. For instance, a person seeing $29.99, will immediately think "30 bucks", but if it's priced $29 flat, they may still round it up and think "30 bucks". On the other hand, said rounding up is a useful way to calculate whether you're still in your budget; rounding 29.50 down to "29 bucks" and being 50 cents over is a Very Bad Thing indeed. An oddball one is the Brands-Mart chain located mostly in Florida, where all of the prices end in 88 cents and have 88 in the price as well. When the tax is added, these prices usually come out even. Sometimes prices ending in 88 cents or a similar less than 90 number are used by the store to indicate that an item is discounted; this is common with electronics and games. Some Goodwill thrift shops price things using a cents figure that is a repetition of the dollars figure; for instance, $13.13. This prevents customers from altering the prices by erasing the numbers—it would be blatantly obvious if someone tried changing that to $3.13. The gimmick also lends itself well to advertising trickery, as someone can claim their item is available for "under $30!" Well, yes, technically speaking, $29.99 is less than $30... Prices ending with .99 still appear in Australia, Canada and the Netherlands even though the lowest coin used is 5c: prices are rounded to the nearest 5 cents when paying in cash.note Prices ending in 8, 9, 1 and 2 round to 0; prices ending in 3, 4, 6 and 7 round to 5. However, if paying via EFTPOS or credit card, the amount is not rounded. This thinking is often carried over to large-ticket items, like cars, at least in the US — nobody cares about a few cents when they're spending five digits worth of dollars, but the MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price) in dollars will end in 7 or 5 far more often than it will end in 0. |
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Matilda had Harry Wormwood (the father) advising his son to "Never sell a car for a round number. Always go under by 50 pence. It may not look like much, but it makes the prices look a lot cheaper." It's sadly the most honest sales tactic he has. His other strategies basically involve using cheap methods to make piece of crap cars seem functional long enough for customers to leave the dealership with them. | |
...And 99¢ / int_14600393 | featureApplicability |
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Matilda | hasFeature |
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...And 99¢ / int_17dcb96c | type |
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...And 99¢ / int_17dcb96c | comment |
Look Around You shows a machine with a price tag of £999.99½p. | |
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...And 99¢ / int_261c8d3f | type |
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...And 99¢ / int_261c8d3f | comment |
The Simpsons: One episode featured Ned Flanders on the run from some punk teenagers. He calls for help from a gas station, but doesn't know the station's name. The only clue he can give in helping someone find him is that the price of gas is $1.49 and eight tenths of a cent. Hilarious in Hindsight now, considering the price of gas is now anywhere between $3.50 and $4.00. Dr. Nick Riviera will do any surgery for $129.95. (And he gives away a free Chinese finger puzzle to brain surgery patients.) Whether he can do it right or not, well, that's another story. |
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The Simpsons | hasFeature |
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The Looney Tunes cartoon "The Ducksters" had Daffy Duck as the host of a radio quiz game with Porky Pig as the woebegone contestant. After much verbal and physical humiliation, Porky is awarded the show's prize—$26,000,000.03. He decides to buy the station and exact revenge on Daffy, he was initially surprised it cost him that exact amount. | |
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Looney Tunes | hasFeature |
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The Meaning of Liff mentions this by inversion, coining the word "Kibblesworth" to refer to the amount by which a price is under the round number - for instance, "£5 kibblesworth a penny". | |
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In an early episode of Mad Men, Roger gives this to Pete as an example of the kind of thing he should think of as a huge, great advertising idea, as opposed to trying to be witty and subvert expectations. | |
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Mad Men | hasFeature |
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...And 99¢ / int_4617a9f2 | type |
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...And 99¢ / int_4617a9f2 | comment |
Married... with Children satirized this when Steve, a bank manager, told Al about his idea about a 99 cent coin to make purchases easier. Of course Al mentions the sales tax which is added to the price, making the coin no better than a dollar bill. Since most countries have the sales tax already in the listed price, he might have considered going abroad. | |
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Married... with Children | hasFeature |
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...And 99¢ / int_5a0093 | type |
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As where the current version of The Price Is Right has rounded off their prices to the nearest dollar since 1972 (except for grocery items used in pricing games and the money for the game Pocket Change), the original Bill Cullen Price included cents in their retail prices. The contestants' bids did not reflect this unless the item up for bids—a light bulb, a pair of kids' roller skates, et. al.— required it (such an item would lead to a big bonus for the winner). | |
...And 99¢ / int_5a0093 | featureApplicability |
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The Price Is Right | hasFeature |
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The WWE Network's subscription fee is $9.99 per month. | |
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WWE (Wrestling) | hasFeature |
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The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "Collect Her", Lenny pays $17.99 for one of the items he bought for his collection. | |
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The Powerpuff Girls (1998) | hasFeature |
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...And 99¢ / int_755d1424 | type |
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The LEGO catalog was an aversion for a while, with the prices of the more expensive sets always being an even number of dollars, often with repeating digits like "$22.00" or "88.00". After they changed their policy to always include the price of shipping, nearly everything ended in 99 cents. | |
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LEGO (Franchise) | hasFeature |
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...And 99¢ / int_7899c84f | type |
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Adrian Mole: In a long school uniform shopping list in Secret Diary, almost every single item has a price ending in 99p. In Wilderness Years, Adrian asks for a two-week holiday in Europe costing no more than £300; he is sold one for £299.99. | |
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Adrian Mole | hasFeature |
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In Clerks, Dante remarks that all prices end in 0.99. And yet in the background, all the prices end with the number five. |
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Clerks | hasFeature |
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...And 99¢ / int_7ff3216c | type |
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A non-financial example appears in Garfield and Friends, where Wade, after ripping the a tag off the bottom of a couch and learning that it's against the law, imagines himself being sentenced to "9,999 years in prison". Wade is relieved: "At least I didn't get life." | |
...And 99¢ / int_7ff3216c | featureApplicability |
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Garfield and Friends | hasFeature |
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...And 99¢ / int_809a3193 | type |
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...And 99¢ / int_809a3193 | comment |
A Different World: After becoming tipsy on cheap wine while celebrating her 21st birthday, Whitley states that she would never again buy a wine whose price ended in this trope. | |
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A Different World | hasFeature |
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...And 99¢ / int_8d4118c1 | type |
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Batman '66: In "The Conqueror Bookworm", Bruce Wayne donates $ 4,999.99 to a charity. | |
...And 99¢ / int_8d4118c1 | featureApplicability |
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Batman '66 (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
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...And 99¢ / int_9004922f | type |
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...And 99¢ / int_9004922f | comment |
In Hogfather, the actual contents of the Hogfather's sack - once you get past the teddy bear and wooden soldier that are always sticking out of the top, but that no child ever wants or gets - are "something a bit garish and costing $5.99". | |
...And 99¢ / int_9004922f | featureApplicability |
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Hogfather | hasFeature |
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...And 99¢ / int_909ca4b1 | type |
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ReBoot once had Mike pitch a Bucket of Nothing, among other things, as being "Free! for only ninety-nine ninety-nine ninety-nine!" "Amuse your friends! Confuse your enemies! Annoy total strangers!" "It's absolutely nothing!" bucket not included More generally "NINETY-NINE NINETY-NINE NINETY-NINE!!!''" is Mike's catchphrase during his first few episodes. On his first appearance he utters it twice in a minute. |
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ReBoot | hasFeature |
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...And 99¢ / int_9994a14f | type |
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Taken to its logical extreme in WALL•E: a brief shot shows the titular character treading over some discarded 99-dollar bills bearing the BnL logo. It can be assumed that Buy n Large must have started printing them after taking over the government, so they could keep fulfilling this trope while eliminating the need to give change back. | |
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WALL•E | hasFeature |
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U.S. Acres: Roy tricked some of his friends into falling into a waller. When the mud dried rendering them immobile, he tried to sell them as "lawn ornaments" and charged $4.99 for each. | |
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U.S. Acres (Comic Strip) | hasFeature |
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In the Futurama episode 'Leela's Homeworld', Hermes tells the Professor that disposing of his toxic waste will cost him 500 dollars (he would also overlook it for a bribe... of 500 dollars). Bender counters the offer by saying he'll take care of it for 499 dollars and 100 cents, to which the Professor agrees because of the convenience. To be fair to the Prof, he did identify that it was the same number. |
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Futurama | hasFeature |
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...And 99¢ / int_ac1c3727 | type |
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...And 99¢ / int_ac1c3727 | comment |
Johnny Dangerously first got involved in the mob in order to raise $29.95 to pay for a medical procedure his mother needed (Yes, it sounds silly, but that genuinely was a lot of money for a lower class family at the turn of the 20th Century). | |
...And 99¢ / int_ac1c3727 | featureApplicability |
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Johnny Dangerously | hasFeature |
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...And 99¢ / int_b0fc9724 | comment |
The Saturday Night Live sketch "39 Cents" features a charity commercial where a man asks for the titular "39 cents a day" to help poor African villagers. This leads two of the villagers in the background to debate the low amount, invoking this trope in the process. | |
...And 99¢ / int_b0fc9724 | featureApplicability |
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Saturday Night Live | hasFeature |
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Back to the Future Part II featured automobile hover-conversions, "only thirty-nine, nine ninety-nine, ninety-five!" ($39,999.95) | |
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Back to the Future Part II | hasFeature |
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Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series has Kaiba inform Joey that "That costs you five hundred and ninety-nine U.S. Life Points". | |
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Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series (Web Video) | hasFeature |
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...And 99¢ / int_d3029198 | type |
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An episode of Antiques Roadshow featured an old Sindy doll from the 1960s. The original price was so-many shillings and 11 pence. There was 12 old pence in a shilling, making this the pre-decimal version of the trope. Further to this, there were twenty shillings in a pound, so something costing more than £1 would typically be priced at x pounds 19/11d - i.e. one (old) penny below the round number. |
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Antiques Roadshow | hasFeature |
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A Strong Bad Email had a price of $249.99.99.99. Yes, that's two forty-nine ninety-nine ninety-nine ninety-nine. | |
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Homestar Runner (Web Animation) | hasFeature |
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Cookie Clicker The flavored cookies have prices that are strings of nines — 99,999,999 for the least expensive varieties and increasing to 99,999,999,999,999 for British Tea Biscuits and 199,999,999,999,999 for French cookies. The ones that can only be unlocked via heavenly chips are priced at 999,999,999,999,999. The Gingerbread Men and Gingerbread Trees flavored cookies avert this, being priced at an even 10 quadrillion cookies each. The base price of the Antimatter Condenser is 3,999,999,999 cookies. |
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Cookie Clicker (Video Game) | hasFeature |
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Hey Arnold!: A high-end electric piano is on sale for $499.95, and the grand prize in the talent show is $500. Gerald points out "If you win, you could buy near gear and still have money left over!" | |
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