I can't stand pricing such as 29.99, 199.99, 45.99....do these people think we're

[raccoon]

so stupid we don't know that equates to $30, $200, $46?

I know I'm spitting into the wind, but still, aargh!!!

[pipi_k]

1. I never could

figure that out, myself...I mean, why some people would think that 99 cents don't count...$19.99 is $20.00 in my book.

So is anything over $19.50.

If I'm in a store and keep a running total in my head, I round up from fifty cents and down from 49 cents.

At the end, I'm very close to the actual total.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

13. I always round up to the next dollar.

Then when I get to the front, with tax, it's usually lower or right on.

[a kennedy]

2. I think that's what JC Penney is doing now with their pricing....

all round dollar amounts.... http://www.qualitylogoproducts.com/blog/jcpenney-pricing-strategy/

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

3. Why do you hate Abraham Lincoln?

Without the x.99 pricing, the penny would be abolished. The nickel would be the new penny. This is a slippery slope.

Long live ninety-nine cent pricing!

[HopeHoops]

4. The penny has expired as useful in currency. So has the nickel for that matter.

Both cost more to produce than their face value and both are a royal pain in the ass in retail. Bah, humbug.

[EastTennesseeDem]

8. People who want to keep the penny just fear change.

Or do they want change...?

I just confused myself.

[HopeHoops]

15. I haven't figured it out. I don't like the back side of the new ones.

I use dollar coins whenever I can, Suzies or golden, whatever I've got. It's a lot easier to dig a few out of my pocket than to get my wallet out and there are places you REALLY don't want to pull out a wallet. Canada uses them for $1 and $2 amounts and Australia (similar currency value) gave up the penny over 20 years ago. With pricing today, dropping the quarter even makes sense if people would just start using half dollars again. Inflation happens.

Now for electronic purchasing, it really doesn't matter. They could use fractions of cents and it wouldn't matter. But for currency, how often do you buy something that isn't close to a 50 cent or dollar round-off? Everybody has jars of coins in their house and don't even try to tell me (whoever is reading this) that you don't. I recently cashed in $300 at the bank's coin counter (free service, no surcharge) that had been sitting around for about ten years. One of my daughters went through every coin looking for old ones. She found a few.

Coins are far cheaper for the US Mint. They last pretty much forever, opposed to paper money which wears out quickly and is still easy to counterfeit. The exceptions to the rule are the nickel and penny. The mint actually makes a profit off of dollar coins, and to a lesser degree all of the other smaller denominations. Paper's easier to print but it doesn't stay in circulation for long. And why is it that we don't have anything larger than a $100 bill anymore? Try moving $5K in cash between banks. I'd rather have something I could put in my wallet than an envelope full of bills.

- this wasn't intended to be one, but it apparently turned into one.

[mrmpa]

16. If we get rid of the penny, then sales taxes would .........

probably go up. I will just say that most sales taxes are roughly 6-7%, if you get rid of the penny, then taxes would have to go up to
%10,you know it wouldn't be lowered to %5.

[Angleae]

21. Sales taxes wouldn't change. The stores however, would round up and keep the change.

[Bucky]

5. Roger from Mad Men would be disappointed in you

I still remember when Bush & Cheney sold us on the Iraq invasion cause it would only cost $999,999,999,999.⁹⁹. And a mere 999,999 innocent lives.

[Auggie]

7. Very good

[KamaAina]

6. In Hawai'i, prices often end in .88

since the Chinese in particular consider 8 a lucky number.

[IcyPeas]

9. why is gas always $X.XX and 9/10ths

what's with it ending in 9/10ths?

[raccoon]

10. Same principal! nt

[RebelOne]

11. Yes, I have always questioned the pricing of gas. n/t

[pokerfan]

20. Because it works

There is quite a bit of folklore trying to explain this phenomenon. There are stories about retail price wars, penny newspapers, and even gas taxes. Some believe that because some taxes levied on the gas companies are 9/10ths of a percent of their volume of sales, they have passed that on to the consumer by increasing gas prices to 9/10ths of a cent.

In the end, though any or all of these things may have happened, many retail and academic studies have found that when prices end in 9, consumers will spend more money. It's a bit embarrassing to find out that most consumers are far more likely to purchase an item priced at $9.99 than the same item priced at $10.00, and there is little change in sales volume when the price changes from $5.00 to $5.99.

http://www.wisegeek.com/why-do-gas-prices-always-end-in-910-of-a-cent.htm

[Pauline89]

12. Spam deleted by NRaleighLiberal (MIR Team)

[Wait Wut]

14. I can't vouch for his theory, but...

...my father owned one of the largest ad agencies in Chicago during the 60s and 70s. I asked him this same question when I was little, probably about 10. His explanation was, yes, a person will round up to $20, but subconsciously they still see $19. As I get older and lose my short-term memory, I've noticed that numbers will round themselves in my brain, but not up or down...to the most obvious. So, $19.99 will be remembered as $19 not $20. He said it had something to do with the visual being more powerful than the logical or something. It was a long time ago, but I retained the basic theory.

[lastlib]

17. yes, they do!

think we're stupid. They're counting on it!

[NightWatcher]

18. I wish they would get rid of all coins, not just pennies

I'm sick of the pounds of change that rattle around the ashtray in the truck or the pile that mounds up on the nightstand. God forbid you should ever try to pay for something with the change you have left over, they look at you as if you were a crazy person at Starbucks should you ever have the nerve to plunk down $5.38 in change for your venti latte. Plus, how many of the clerks out there cannot do simple math? When the total is $5.25 and you hand them a ten dollar bill and a quarter, forget about it, you've just blown this kid's mind for the day, he'll need to be reassigned to the fryolater after trying to tackle that math on the touchscreen picture cash register.

Just round the amount down to the nearest dollar (or put multiples of an item together to tally an even dollar amount). Also, please let the retailers go ahead and figure they sales tax before they put a price tag on an item. I hate when a 1.99 object comes out costing 2.13. it should be $2, no fuss no muss

Or just put chips in our fucking heads and a big barcode on our foreheads. You take your groceries to the cashier and they scan you and deduct it from your account without even having to bring math or wallets into the equation.

[Arkansas Granny]

19. As a matter of fact, they do think so, and in some cases they are correct.

[Broken_Hero]

22. It begs the old Married with Children

thought, when Steve(I think) wanted to make a .99 cent piece...but then others would bring up the "what about tax" pov....

I think the .99 doesn't fool anyone, not sure why they do it, but I'm sure they have their reasons...