Winning:
Last month I was on Thayer St. in Providence Rhode Island with a couple friends and stopped into a restaurant called Kabob and Curry. At first it was just your average place to grab a quick bite. But then we realized all these weird prices $7.16, $8.54 and so on. Really strange had no idea why they were like this. Then we realized that it was because once tax was added the prices came out even $8 flat or whatever.
What a great idea! I loved this concept. I mean I still remember this place a month after being there…I didn’t even buy anything because I wasn’t hungry.
This is especially great in a college town because I hated having change at school. It was just a pain and generally ended up lost. I would honestly rather pay $8 then $7.85 or something where I end up with change.
One of the biggest things is it is just different. Honestly this could probably be called a marketing strategy rather then a pricing strategy. Creates word of mouth and is memorable just because its different.
Losing:
I spend a lot of time in Panera to get out of the house and get some work done. Really love it for the free Wifi and the atmosphere. However they just raised their prices on coffee. It was I think $1.84 for a medium cup now its $2.04.
Now here’s the problem. I do not want 96cents of change back for getting a cup of coffee! Most of the time I would just tell them to keep the change when it was 16cents but now I feel like I’m losing a whole dollar. I also don’t want to break a dollar bill to cover that extra 4cents.
To me this is really annoying and discourages me from getting some coffee when I end up at Panera.
My ideal price like the kabob place from above would be $2 flat. I would prefer that over the $1.84 and obviously the $2.04. Just to eliminate the change.
Now maybe I’m just being picky but its just the images these prices place in my head. I didn’t even eat at the Kabob place and I remember it a month later. The Panera price just puts a negative image in my head because the change comes across as annoying.
I wonder if Panera considered this before doing that? Do you think Panera would make more sales if their prices all ended up being on the dollar because of the word of mouth?
Or am I the only person in the world that this bothers? haha
