Do you think 7 is a lucky number?

No, and -99 pricing pisses me off.

Hehe. I'm a fan of number theory, too. I used to daydream about the ten digits we use on the phone for hours, while hand-dialing residential numbers during the afternoon.

How did your D2D prospecting turn out last week?

I went door-to-door today, first time since winter, and a really nice day to walk and talk to people. I caught my reflection in several store windows out there. I'm getting back on the phone. I got really fat this winter.

The phone really is the best business tool ever devised.

The only people that believe a price ending in 7 is some sort of "tactice" are people who populate the Warrior Forum.

For the most part, people here have the sickness called "do it exactly like so and so guru did it down to the minute detail" ...or "so and so Guru said its this way or that way, so it is the word of God"

So...somewhere along the lines I imagine some Guru...probably realizing the trendsetting power he had over the doting minions...decided to declare 7 to be a magical number.

I've heard rumors of studies on this....havn't really bothered to look for them. So be warned I could be talking out my buttox. In my own pricing of various products I havn't really seen a difference in any number I use. I do actually feel like 4 stands out a bit more than others but I don't know for sure. I really think the whole thing is a crap shoot. Your pricing strategy probably has more to do with whether your "in the ballpark" of a buyers perceived value of what your selling. I mean if you way off base by like 30 or 50 bucks...then it isn't going to make a lick of difference if you end in 7 or 9 or 0.

I will say this...the number 7 does seem to be a tell tale that your dealing with a warrior...its like...a tradition or something. Oddly I actually see that as a positive thing about it.

...but does it increase sales? ...I'm not a believer.

I just remembered that someone spammed me in a PM here offering a gimmick WSO for $7.

Here's an overview of psychological pricing I just scanned over Psychological pricing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia It's on Wikipedia, for what that's worth.

David,

Since you mentioned you had lived in Las Vegas I think you know the importance of 7. The house loves it and the shooter only loves it when he is on a come out roll. Of course you could always place bet the 7. Not too smart but it is gladly allowed by the house. Wonder why?

By the way the largest retailer in the world loves 8. All of their prices end in 8. Just returned from Wally World, ugh! don't get me started, and had my eyes half peeled at the pricing. 8's are everywhere.

Must be their secret weapon for doing a quarter of a trillion dollars in biz every year. Maybe IMers should follow the Benton AK gangstas...

Have a great day,

Tom

I like number 7 also and i'm a great fan of this number. Some say its lucky number and i believe it's some sort of superstition. Some also stopped raising their money to $8M because they love $7M than $8M and they don't want to be richer than $7M.

Sorry to jump on this weeks after the fact but I only just came across the thread.

The 7's theory was actually started by Ted Nicholas (marketing guru, made squillions, old dude), it had nothing to do with the forum. The funny thing about it is that no one seems certain where the evidence is or if it's just a theory. His claim was simply that having the price end in a 7 made consumers more succeptable to the sale, and that was pretty much it.

when I did some direct mail marketing in the mid 90's (i'm old...) I remember direct marketing experts suggested the price should end with a 7 and they did lots of testing on it. so the 7 thing has been around a long time.

I end everything with a 0 now.

Hi David,

Legendary marketer Joe Sugarman wrote a book called Triggers a while back, and one section of the book specifically talks about using the number 7. Just a quick quote from the book:

"There are certain words that are very familiar to most people and to human consciousness. For example,if you ask someone to give you a number from 1 to 10, right off the top of his head, chances are that he'll choose the number 7. For some reason, that number is chosen more than any other, and in fact it dwarfs the next choice. Therefore, using the number 7 in a book title, such as "Seven Ways to Improve Your Relationships" or "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success", is utilizing the most common and familiar integer of the first ten. You are therefore relating to the familiar and harmonizing with your reader."

Whether there's any validity to this or not, who knows! :-)

-Terry

David,

I always heard that "7" is the last number your brain relates to the lowest number.. before "realizing" its more? I hope you get what I am trying to say..

So when the average person sees "$47" , they are ninja mind tricked into related it with $40, I suppose.

Like someone who posted prior, I have never really looked into the psychology behind the "7" .. but I understand the psychology behind paying "more" means it's "better" -

In my offline business, I started "low" (compared to where I am charging today) and heard no often, and when I started branding my self as the "mercedes" of my services, people said yes more, as nameless referred to.

Nameless trying to get me to quit, but for the saftey of the people who I may interact with daily, I choose to continue on.

Maybe if there was a way to quit, that charged me something .. that ended in a "7" ..I would buy it.
Ry

I'm pretty curious about 7 & 9 as well. To be honest I never really cared about what number the price ends with. But I really wonder what the general public thinks about it. I remember reading somewhere you should really split test 5,7 and 9.

But at the same time I HAVE heard of many stories of people getting more sales with the price ending with the number 7 as IAmNameLess has pointed out...

The number 7 is not only an online thing. When I sold cars and now when I train others I will often end a price in 7. There are a few reasons for using 7 instead of 9 or 0 or even 5. I will also sometimes use 3.

The psychological reason is that in using 7 instead of 9, 0, or 5 is because of how the human mind is conditioned to the other numbers. Certain words or events create anchors in our mind. Once an anchor is set it is extremely hard to rest your mind in that area. 9,5, and 0 are numbers that in most minds are associated with slick advertising that is designed to get your money. 0 and 5 are round numbers so can’t be the actual price I should pay and 9 is an age old trick to make you feel you are getting a discount. The problem is every American knows that about 9.

Number like 7 and 3 seem more of a calculated definite number and creates pattern interrupt as well as cognitive disassociation. This also begins a new anchor in the minds telling it “if this is ending in 7 it must be more of a definite price and the actual deal, because 9 is a trick and 0 and 5 is rounded off numbers.” It is subconscious but it is what is happening.

I am not speaking theory here. While selling cars anytime I priced one ending in 7 I received less negotiations using other methods along with it, than doing the same sale methods and ending the price in 0,5 or 9.

I now train with 7 along with a certain phrases and those clients are now making more per deal. It is not online and it is not theory or guessing. It is a matter of how “most” minds works and how they are fixed in anchors.

The only other anchor is, as we all know 7 is the most common favorite number out there, especially among Christians, who make up a big majority of America thus the majority of purchasers. Some feel and believe inside that it is a sign when they see it, as silly as it may seem to some these people will be influenced when seeing 7. Influenced by either the anchors I mentioned above or because of personal beliefs.

I adopted the number 7 as my lucky number years ago and it hasn't brought me an ounce of luck!

Nope , not a luck number for me

James Shramcko tested this and shared his results.

He said he saw no difference in ending with a 9 or 7, but, he said with the volume he sold last year, if he did not test and just went with ending in a 7 he would have lost 1000s.

Online, since you don't pay for tax, I prefer seeing it end with the lower number I think $17 would be more enticing to me then $19 for example. But. if I'm in a store and I see the price ending in any number I just naturally round it up in my head so I don't think that has much of an effect on me personally anyways.

My wife doesn't though, and they're the real target market in the offline shopping world!

The price could be $55.99 and she'll say it's $55, drives me nuts, haha.

I can tell you this for a fact about myself. When I am in the supermarket searching for things that are on sale, say shaving cream for instance, if the price ends in a 7 I often get angry about it and it just irritates me for some reason.

I can't explain why, but I think its that voice in the back of my head that screams "why the **** couldn't they just add 2 cents to it?" It does something to mess up my personal schema for how I expect prices to look. If I just saw 50 items that were all $1.99, $2.99, $15.99, then I see a product thats like $4.97, for some reason I have to stop and think "how much does $4.97 =?" Almost like I don't understand its value and I always stop and get confused.

Its pretty dumb yes. But think about this (what I learned in psychology). SCHEMAS ARE A VERY IMPORTANT PART OF HUMAN BEHAVOIR. The function of a schema in human psychology servces to make things simpler, and keep certain aspects of thought on autopilot. If you disrupt that schema, you disrupt the way a person takes in information, which will often trigger anxiety. So it seems I do know why the #7 bothers me.

Another thing I heard about the #7 that is a bit contradicting, is if you ask people to guess a random number between 1-10, 7 is always the most commonly reported number. Go figure. But as far as pricing goes, like I said people are just use to 9 so 7 pisses them off.

I'd be really curious to see if what iamnameless said was true, because I can't think of an explanation in the world that would explain it. Would think in most cases it would cause more harm than good, but who knows, humans are very odd creatures.

-Red