From the course: Universal Principles of Design

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Left-digit effect

Left-digit effect

From the course: Universal Principles of Design

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Left-digit effect

- Hi. I'm William Lidwell. And this is Universal Principles of Design. In this movie, the Left-Digit Effect when the price is right. Walk the aisles of any grocery store, or browse any e-commerce site online, and you'll find that most products have prices that end in "99". Retailers clearly believe there is some benefit to ending prices this way. But what is it? And where did this idea come from? The convention first appeared in newspaper ads in the late 1800s. Nobody knows for sure what started the trend, but one theory is the introduction of the cash register. Or, as it was named at the time, the "Incorruptible Cashier". You see, prices ending in "99" required cashiers to make change, announcing sale with the rings and dings of the mechanical register. This prevented unscrupulous clerks from silently pocketing bills when checking out customers. But that was then. What about now? Researchers have found that consumers overweigh the left-most digits of prices, a tendency they dubbed…

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