Ninety Nine – “99”. It’s true – consumers really are drawn to prices that end in “99.”
We recently conducted some research that analyzed just how much more used car shoppers gravitated to used car listings ending in “99” and the results were conclusive: there was a significant lift in clicks from vehicle search results to the all-important and high-converting Vehicle Detail Pages when a vehicle’s price ended in “99” compared to those that didn’t.
So how do dealers typically price their used vehicles? We looked at over 3.5 million listings and found that most don’t end their prices in “9.” In fact, only 7% of them ended in “99,” while 18% ended in “95” and 14% ended in “00.”
The Oldest Trick in the Book
To figure out how dealers could price vehicles to improve consumer interest, we started with an obvious question: what effect does ending a price in 9 have on consumer interest and conversion?
This of course, is the oldest trick in the book and one that is detailed in the journal of Quantitative Marketing and Economics.
While our study was focused on the used car shopper, we first wanted to look at how manufacturers price leases for new cars. It came as no surprise that out of the 398 lease offers we examined, 98% of them end in “9.” But, surprisingly, this practice has not trickled down to dealer pricing.
We found that dealers that end their prices in 99 convert shoppers from the SRP to VDP much more often. Prices that end in “99” vs. “00” showed a 16% lift in SRP-to-VDP conversion. Prices that end in “999” performed 9% better than those ending in “000.”
One other interesting item to note, most marketplaces sort their listings from low to high, meaning that consumers have to scroll through the lower priced vehicles to reach the higher priced ones!
The take away here is obvious: Make it a practice to always end your prices with multiple 9s.
[highlight color=”#CCE6FF” font=”black”]For more findings and detailed information, dealerships can download the full CarStory How to Convert Used Car Shoppers to Buyers white paper at www.carstory.com/research/. While you’re over there, check out their free market reports for on your dealership website. – Kershner[/highlight]