Does ending items in cents really play a huge role in consumer decision making?

Ah this is an old, old, very old trick that is often used in the retail industry. For some daft reason, there are lots of people who think that $99.99 (or in my case £s cause they use the same trick here) is oddly closer to $99 than it is to $100. Once you know that trick, you are never fooled by it again!
I think it’s been largely responsible for the amount of rush purchases made in the retail industry that provide much of a company’s profit.

And they think us lowly shelf-stackers don’t know squat!

BOGOF works best, even with this annoying bugger.

GAH…you had to mention that ‘thing’ didn’t you ucme?
But that said, BOGOF is more of a benefit to the consumer than it is to the retailer, unless they offset that with the sales from another product.
Also with relation to that bit about the 50 cent difference (I can work in multiple currencies it makes no difference to me), it wouldn’t work as well. It’s too much “middle of the line”.
They want something that is as close to the higher figure whilst still making it look like it’s actually less than is advertised. Do you also notice how they will put in bold the big figure in bucks and the tiny figure in cents? That’s another psychological trick. It’s a small figure, it doesn’t matter, what matters is that big bit in bold. If it’s only 99 cents, who cares? The brain of the typical purchaser is gonna think “nah it’s just 99 cents”, they’re less likely to think “well that’s nearly another buck!”
Smaller figures in terms of monetary value instead of how they appear on paper as smaller figures next to big bold dollar signs, are more likely to be of detriment to a business, because they’ll be selling themselves short in terms of profit, but they would keep getting customers back – arguably…I say arguably on the premise that more often than not you most likely get what you pay for.

Indeed @lightsourcetrickster, just thought i’d give gormless another airing, for the hell of it.

duly noted @ucme. I wait with eager anticipation for when the mere mention is outlawed, haha.

The cents amount can be a signal to the sales person what type of discount was taken. Ending in 00 can mean regular priced item, .99 permanent mark down, .98 special original price, etc. So, it is more than just trying to trick the consumer. It also can be used when writing ads and signage like “Items Under $100” for instance.

It is just one of the psychological manipulation techniques employed. Others include having the most expensive items on eye level, having a maze of rows with items that are bought most often as far apart as possible, so people buy things in between that they did not plan to buy, soothing music to slow customers down, have them stay longer and buy more, candy at the checkout so the kids start nagging, and huge trolleys.

Another trick is to put a sign on a bin of items that says SALE, with no reduction in price. People see the sign and think they are getting a bargain.

@chyna Some states have laws governing that sort of thing.

What an interesting question. And thank you @JLeslie for providing some insight from the retail side.

All I can tell you is that one of the hotel chains I worked for made it a standard that none of the hotels could price the room rates in a cent sign, e.g. $99.99. Apparently, enough complaints came in from guests, either about the cheesiness of the sales ploy (see @ucme‘s commercial link) or being well over the anticipated price once the tax was added on, that the company found it better just to go with a flat figure.

@Pied_Pfeffer Oh, that is interesting. So true that when I book hotels, which I do a lot, it is always 00 I think? Well, actually, if memory serves, Marriott says just the dollars and country currency, for example 149 (USD). I just booked a Marriott family hotel so I remember that one, Hilton I am not sure from memory how it is listed. So, anyway Marriott does use the 9 trick at times per se, but not involving the cents. I hadn’t thought of it before, but ending in 99¢ would seem lower end to me for a hotel.