Priceless
The Hidden Psychology of Value
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- 8,99 €
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- 8,99 €
Publisher Description
The first book to reveal how everday pricing strategies manipulate us
Why do text messages cost money while emails are free? Why do cereal packets keep getting smaller? Why do department stores have a few extortionate goods that no one will buy? Why do so many prices end in 9?
In Priceless, bestselling author William Poundstone reveals the hidden psychology of value and explores how we react to the most pervasive persuader of all: price. Charting the burgeoning growth of price-consultants who advise retailers from Nike to Nokia, Poundstone shows how behavioural decision theory has revolutionised the pricing strategies of major corporations.
Informed by fascinating behavioural experiments and packed with real-life examples, Priceless explains why prices are so important, and the tricks that companies use to sell their goods. It will prove indispensable to
anyone who buys, sells, or negotiates.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Poundstone (Gaming the Vote) dives into the latest psychological findings to investigate how and why prices are allocated. Beginning with the controversial lawsuit in which a jury awarded $2.9 million in damages to a woman who had spilled a scalding cup of McDonald's coffee on herself, the author presents a readable history of how we are subtly manipulated into paying more (or less) for goods and services and the research that attempts to explain our baffling and irrational susceptibility to pricing. The idea of "anchoring and adjustment" setting an arbitrary number to subconsciously drive higher or lower estimates is just one of many research areas explained at length. While Poundstone's case studies are vivid, the abundance of theories and experiments might prove overwhelming for the casual reader. Nevertheless, the scope of the analysis its attention to economic abstractions as well as real-world consequences braids together theory and practice to leave an indelible impression on the reader. Grocery shopping will never seem so simple again when one realizes how much work goes into assigning a price to a box of cereal.
