CONSUMER’S BEHAVIOR & ATTITUDE TOWARDS 9-ENDING PRICING STRATEGY

Abstract

In today's cutthroat global markets, it is extremely difficult for a business enterprise to survive. The price that a company sets for a product or service is critical to its long-term viability. As a result, it is critical to employ a pricing strategy that will allow the company to increase its revenue and profits. For a long time, the 9-ending pricing approach has been the strategy that has kept businesses afloat with increased revenue and profits. The 9-ending pricing, also known as psychological pricing, is crucial in shaping consumers' expectations and psyche when it comes to purchasing decisions. In this paper we have done the study to understand the factors like price consciousness, brand, quality and perceived cost among these factors which is influencing the consumers to believe that the 9 ending price as a low price. A Sample data of 81 indivuals has been studied to understand the factors affecting the pricing strategy. Results shows that the people below the age group of 25 perceive that the 9 ending price products as low quality product. This research adds to our understanding of how consumers process 9-ending rates, which has consequences for electronic products and retail stores. Keywords: 9 ending pricing, low quality, consumer behaviour, psychology pricing 1. INTRODUCTION Commodities and services with the nine-endings prices are seen almost everywhere, from the grocery stores to the electronic shops for the new products as well as the items on sale. This pricing strategy is based upon the assumptions that some prices have psychological impact on the perception of buyer. In the year 1875, this strategy was first practiced by the business organizations along with the markets for influencing the purchase related decision making of the consumers. Melville E. Stone was the first person to make use of this pricing strategy. He introduced his Chicago Daily Newspaper for one cent in order to compete with the Nickel papers. However, it did not get good response from the people interested to purchase the newspaper. Then, Stone lowered the price of the product by just one cent bringing the price to 0.99ratherthan0.99 rather than 1.00. Now, this augmented the sales by 60% with the increase in sale of newspaper just with a change in one cent. Therefore, 9 ending pricing is also known as psychological pricing or charm pricing. The image effect reflects that the buyers perceive different meanings of any commodity price through the rightmost digits which is namely known as the price image effect and the quality image effect (Schindler, 1991). The quality image effect is basically how the buyers related the nine-ending price product with the lower quality products whereas the round-ending prices with the high quality products (Schindler, 1991). Whereas, in the price image effect, buyers infer that the nine-ending price shows a discount in value purchase and the round-ending prices reflects the purchase of expensive items (Royne, Martinez, Oakley, and Fox, 2012).

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Sambodhi ISSN: 2249-6661
(UGC Care Journal) Vol-44 No.-01(XIII) : 2021
Copyright © 2021 Authors 84
CONSUMER’S BEHAVIOR & ATTITUDE TOWARDS 9-ENDING PRICING STRATEGY
R. Kamalavani.Research Scholar, Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship, Bengaluru,
Recognized Research center, University of Mysore. Mail ID: kamalavani26blr@xime.org
Manisa Singh.Research Scholar, Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship, Bengaluru,
Recognized Research center, University of Mysore. E-Mail ID: manisa26blr@xime.org
Dr.S. Rajkumar Research Supervisor, Assistant Professor, Xavier Institute of Management &
Entrepreneurship, Bengaluru, Recognized Research center, University of Mysore. E-Mail ID:
rajkumar@xime.org
ABSTRACT
In today's cutthroat global markets, it is extremely difficult for a business enterprise to survive. The
price that a company sets for a product or service is critical to its long-term viability. As a result, it is
critical to employ a pricing strategy that will allow the company to increase its revenue and profits.
For a long time, the 9-ending pricing approach has been the strategy that has kept businesses afloat
with increased revenue and profits. The 9-ending pricing, also known as psychological pricing, is
crucial in shaping consumers' expectations and psyche when it comes to purchasing decisions. In this
paper we have done the study to understand the factors like price consciousness, brand, quality and
perceived cost among these factors which is influencing the consumers to believe that the 9 ending
price as a low price. A Sample data of 81 indivuals has been studied to understand the factors
affecting the pricing strategy. Results shows that the people below the age group of 25 perceive that
the 9 ending price products as low quality product. This research adds to our understanding of how
consumers process 9-ending rates, which has consequences for electronic products and retail stores.
Keywords: 9 ending pricing, low quality, consumer behaviour, psychology pricing
1. INTRODUCTION
Commodities and services with the nine-endings prices are seen almost everywhere, from the
grocery stores to the electronic shops for the new products as well as the items on sale. This pricing
strategy is based upon the assumptions that some prices have psychological impact on the perception
of buyer. In the year 1875, this strategy was first practiced by the business organizations along with
the markets for influencing the purchase related decision making of the consumers. Melville E. Stone
was the first person to make use of this pricing strategy. He introduced his Chicago Daily Newspaper
for one cent in order to compete with the Nickel papers. However, it did not get good response from
the people interested to purchase the newspaper. Then, Stone lowered the price of the product by just
one cent bringing the price to $0.99 rather than $1.00. Now, this augmented the sales by 60% with
the increase in sale of newspaper just with a change in one cent. Therefore, 9 ending pricing is also
known as psychological pricing or charm pricing.
The image effect reflects that the buyers perceive different meanings of any commodity price
through the rightmost digits which is namely known as the price image effect and the quality image
effect (Schindler, 1991). The quality image effect is basically how the buyers related the nine-ending
price product with the lower quality products whereas the round-ending prices with the high quality
products (Schindler, 1991). Whereas, in the price image effect, buyers infer that the nine-ending
price shows a discount in value purchase and the round-ending prices reflects the purchase of
expensive items (Royne, Martinez, Oakley, and Fox, 2012).
The retail prices are generally planned as ‘9-ending prices’, less than the round numerals (e.g, $4.99
instead of $5.00). $4.99 is often perceived to be near to $4 and thus lower than 5. Hence, $4.99 is
associated with spending just $4.00 than $5.00. The customers tend to believe that 9-ending prices
are lower than what actually they are. This pricing strategy is known as the art of scheming the price
which proves appealing to the emotions of the customers and psyche influencing their purchasing
decisions.

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Various past studies have revealed that the subtle difference in the pricing is capable to create the
substantial deviations in the decision of buyers. Even a trivial difference between the prices of a
commodity can infuse different beliefs in the buyers leading to difference in decisions making
(Monroe, 1990). Thus, retailers try to exploit the tendency of buyer by setting prices which end in
nine and is referred to as the odd pricing in marketing literature.
After reviewing various literatures, it can be concluded that most of the researchers have focused on
the 0 or 9 ending prices and not on other numbers. Accordingly, we have conducted experiment
which aims to understand the preference of buyers for the zero ending pricing versus the nine ending
prices in the purchase of retail products and purchasing motivations an individual get with the varied
price levels. It is a 2 (price level: low and high) *2 (price ending: nine ending and round ending)
The execution of the experiment is done by collection of primary data from 81 people. In this paper
we have done the study to understand the factors like price consciousness, brand, quality and
perceived cost among these factors which is influencing the consumers to believe that the 9 ending
price as a low price. Generally, the previous researchers had some geographical and demographical
limitation while choosing the respondents. However, our data are collected from people belonging to
different regions of India which helps in to check the difference in preference of buyers for the retails
products due to pricing.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
An Attempt has been made to measure the effect of the prices ending with 9 on consumers in the UK
retail market, via a quantitative empirical sales trial (Jeffery Bray, Christine Harris 2010). Authors
have done some preliminary research across 400 retail stores in UK. The result of the study shows
that the price ending have significant effect on Sales and it has also provided us the broad view that
the usage of price with 9 ending have increased the growth of sales value in the market and volume
of the sale of product is also increased. This research is also concluded that the 64% of the UK
retailers uses 9 ending pricing strategy method to improve their sales value.
The Author has done research about the four symbolic meanings that have been associated with the
9-ending pricing strategy (Ji Youn Jeong, John L. Crompton 2017) and have done research about the
people from high context culture and low context cultures attribute about their perception towards
the tourism services with 9-ending prices . Discount price, enhanced value, low quality, and
misleading action are the meanings associated with it. The main motive of this study is to understand
the relative strength of these meanings with respect to the tourism service. In order to study this the
author has collected samples from USA, Korea and China. The result of the study is, Samples from
high context culture of Korea and China are comparatively less likely to select tourism services with
9-ending prices than those from the low-context culture of the U.SA
Author used the study to understand the effect of 9-ending pricing strategy to a broad set of
determinants and investigates about the influences of brand, Category, Store and Store area
(Sandrine Macé, 2011). Author has done the research across 83 stores for 399 weeks to understand
how 9-ending strategy affecting the above mentioned factors. The results of the study shows that the
nine ending strategy can lead to losses for premium brands but it is more effective for increasing the
sales of small brands.
Author talks about the usage of rightmost digits while pricing the product in advertisement
(PATRICK N. KIRBY 1997). In particular the study has been done based on with the popular three
rightmost ending price 0,5 or 9. Author has used more than 40,000 newspaper on USA for the
purpose of surveying to analysis the strategy used by the people in the rightmost ending digits. The
result of the study shows some interesting facts that the irrespective of the length of the price,
consumers are more concerned about the end digit of the price. Surveying of the newspaper has lead
us to know about that the sales values has got increased for the product which has been advertised
with the 9 as their end digit.
Author states that the ending price of any product communicates meaning to the customers (Robert
M. Schindler, 2005). This paper has done research about how the 99 ending price can have a lower

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price meaning. Author has done the research based on the advertisement given in the newspaper. He
has categorised the newspapers into two set of samples. One which includes the popular magazines
of USA and another sample includes 40,000 newspapers. The results from this study is that the
people who uses top magazines and other normal magazines reviles that the price of those product
ends with 99 has showed increased in sales value and interest shown by people towards those
products are high.
Author is aimed at providing the understanding of the psychological factors that influences on price
ending strategy (E. S. Asamoah, M. Chovancová, 2011). Author has done an exploratory research in
16 home-drop advertising material, short magazines and leaf lets by retails shops in the Zlin region.
Opinions of 173 people were sampled during the research. The result of the research shows that the
people from that particular region feels that the price ending with odd digit is seems to be low price.
It also concludes that different factors such as brand, category, sales promotion are some of the
things which influences the psychological behaviour of the consumer while purchasing.
Author talks about the price encoding mechanism of the consumer (Nicholas Gueguen, 2002). The
Result of the study states that the consumers tends to read the price value from left to right, which
leads to only partial memorization of the price. People tend to remember only the leftmost digit in
the price and where they will put 00 value to the reaming digits. If the price of the product ends in
zero. This strategy helps the people to reduce 99 Rupees from the original cost of the product.
Author has brought the effect of nine ending pricing strategy on consumers behaviour in a small
restaurant (Ce´line Jacob, Patrick Legoherel, Paul NGobo, 2008). Here the author has used the
observation method to understand the costumer behaviour. The author has absorbed nearly 1271
customers who ordered pizza. Observation was done for 4 weeks, where for the first two weeks pizza
are priced with the endings 00 (8.00) and for the next two weeks the last two digit is changed to 99
(7.99). Result of the study shows that the increase in the sale of the pizza is considerably higher in
the last two weeks comparatively before one.
Two different experiments has been conducted in order to examine the impact of 99 ending pricing
on memory based comparison with multiple product sets (James R. Carver ∗, Daniel T. Padgett,
2012). Author has conducted this experiment with the 40 members. The result of the experiment
states that the product whose values are ended with 00, people tend say the same value. When the
product value is ends with the 99, people tends to remember only the leftmost digit of the price then
they add zero to the next proceeding digit, which we can interpret is that when the product is priced
with the ending digit 99 consumers tends to reduce 99 rupees in their product value.
Here, the author as used the adaptation level theory (Brian R. Kinard, 2013), where they have used
475 subjects to conduct two different experiments that required them to read a scenario, evaluate a
series of advertised products, and perform an aided price recall task. The result of the study shows
that the consumers are more likely to recall the correct price when more of the rightmost digits end in
0. Moreover, the consumers are incorrectly recalling the price only when the rightmost digit of the
products ends with either 5 or 9.
Author talks about the influential behaviour of odd pricing strategy towards consumer’s behaviour
on hedonic and utilitarian products (Jungsil Choi, 2014). Four different types of study has been
conducted in order to understand the research, where the Study 1 reveals that the odd ending price
strategy let people to choose the hedonic product over utilitarian products. In study 2 finds that the
effect of the hedonic product ends with odd ending price is mediated by guilt reduction, Study 3
states that the purchase of hedonic products will get increases only when monetary, not
nonmonetary, guilt is reduced. Study 4 suggest that the consumers who are made aware of the trivial
difference between odd- and round-ending prices are no longer influenced by odd-ending prices.
Author studies about the impact of changes in the price endings and associated leftmost price digits
on choice (KENNETH C. MANNING, 2016). The Author has used different combinations of the
price endings to the same products. The results of the study shows that, if the rightmost digit of the
product ends with 00 then the effect of the leftmost digit of the product is less. If the rightmost digit

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of the product ends with 99 then the people tends to remember only the leftmost digit and then
automatically replace the 99 ending with 0.
Author talks about the pricing strategy used in the Chinese culture (Lee C. Simmons and Robert M.
Schindler, 2002). Different culture follows different practices. So, when an organisation makes up a
strategy for the price calculation it has to understand the local culture and the behaviour of the
country in order to get success. Similarly, here in this paper it has done a study about the cultural
influence of Chinese in order while making the pricing strategy. The culture of Chinese and Indians
are more or less same, where both the people give more value to the culture than anything. The result
of the states that the people in China tends to believe that the product ends with 8 will get then good
vibes, whereas if the product ends with 4 give bad vibes. So, it necessary for the organisation to do
the research before forming the price of the product.
Author talks about the group of customers who are likely to responds to 9-ending as opposed to
round endings (Christine Harris, Jeffery Bray). Authors has used questionnaire in order to understand
the objective. The result of the study shows that there was a difference between gender groups;
women were more likely to respond with 9-endings than men and hence, the investigating price
endings of the products is by segmenting the market.
Judith Holdershaw, Philip Gendall and Ron Garland( 1997) have done analysis of 840 advertisement
has been done in order to know the prevalence of odd pricing, where each advertisement is an
analysed based on the rightmost digit. The result of the research states that nearly 87% of the
advertised product ends with odd digit pricing. Out of this where 60% of the price ends with digit 9,
30% ends with 5. So, which it states that approximately 90% of the price are ending with odd digit.
An experiment with 188 university students was conducted via online survey to understand the
magic and math behind the price endings. The study was conducted with two discrete choices of
items namely tomato soup (40cents to 99 cents) and backpacks ($30 to $29) were used. The impact
of 9 ending was significant for backpack category and not significant for the soup category. Authors
concludes that the consumer do not process the price of product in a holistic manner rather they split
it into two parts ( Jianping Liang, Vinay Kanetkar,2006)
Author studied about the price ending impact for the green and non-green products (Avinash
Tripathi, Neeraj Pandey, 2018). Three experiments were conducted to understand the buyer
preferences with the respondents. This result of the study states that the marketers prefer round
ending prices for the expensive products, pleasure oriented products or the green products as the
finding revealed that odd ending pricing reduces the influence for higher priced items.
Researchers shows that the effectiveness of the CRM activities rely in the pricing. They
demonstrated that CRM campaigns are dependent upon the offer price ending as the consumer
perceives 99 ending prices to be more attractive by experimenting with 241 student in their study 1
and 351 students in their study 2 (Mazen Jaber and Kylie Jaber,2020). However, authors concludes
that even ending or no ending prices are more effective for the high priced products.
However, after collecting no. of price data set relating to grocery retailing stores and automobile
sector from biltorget or car market and even from newspaper advertisement of Finland, Sweden and
Netherland. It was concluded that price setters pick attractive prices with 9-prices as the most
commonly used to attract the mind of consumers (Ville Aalto-Setala, Markus Halonen, 2004).
Moreover, even when the prices end in”0”, it was observed that 9 occurred at any digit of price.
Round prices save time and effort in computation during transactions (Wieseke, Kolberg, and Marie
Schons, 2015). A significant increase in sales was recorded with round ending price. Moreover, just
below prices are not accepted in universal market. Highly convenience conscious people accepts
round price to be more attractive. After 4 studies, it was stated that price endings pricing needs to be
employed in a judicious manner, basically in the purchase situations where there is a need for
convenience.
After unique experimental settings, author concluded that the left to right digits encoding is
considered to be one necessary condition to enjoy higher than the general expected demand (Keith S.
Coulter, 2001). Advertising campaign was conducted by editing same product with fictional brand

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name and pricing. The finding showed that the left to right pricing processing strategy is
predominant whether it is in verbal or written stimuli.
A study was conducted basically to check the impact of price presentations in the travel research
domain. Adults from US Online panel of Amazon MTurk were taken for the experimental studies
that they concluded that the preference for high quality and high price hotel options was more in the
rounded prices. The precise price ending strategy is considered to be a smart choice for the economy
resorts and hotels(Kim, Cui, Choi, Lee and Marshall,2020) The online website do not consider and
opt for the optimal pricing strategy basically for the expensive category.
In the western countries, manipulating with the rightmost digits is a tactical approach commonly
used by the retailers (Mazen Jaber, Kylie Jaber, 2017). The author claims that making use of the
right digits in the currency substitution or dollarized economy for persuading the consumers brings
success to the business. Rounded price brings negative impact on the attitude of people towards the
price except when related to the product quality.
The pricing strategy of retailer needs to be done in a detailed manner. Checking the threshold limits
for the brand individually is necessary rather than generalizing the misleading rules of thumb that
odd ending prices is perceived to be low(Wagner, Beinke, 2006). Rather these odd ending prices
cannot be always considered as the flag which acts as the threshold in the consumer response.
Though for some brand it might prove be significant but not for all.
Odd endings are related with the higher value of significance to consumers. The consumers of high
context culture do not fall in the illusion of gain, cheapness or value created by the odd endings
(Taran, 2007). The high low context theory supplements the prior theory for price ending patterns in
the non-western countries. Moreover, the surveys done provided that the pattern observed in the
western market relating to the consumer behaviour and price processing is not of universal nature.
Hence, web can be used to expedite research and improve the sampling technique in the research
work of international market.
Authors concluded that 9 ending pricing is considered to be attractive concept of marketing (Ngobo,
Legoherel, Geuguen, 2010). After analysing over 11000 SKUs in 102 categories of product in the
grocery stores, they claimed that the 99 ending prices are a preferable choice for the promotional and
concentrated categories and less in the expensive categories.
It was found that the promotion framing does have a vital impact on the choice made by the
individual (Delvecchio, Krishnan, Smith, 2007). They concluded from their research that promotions
affect the choice made by the consumers to a large extent. Moreover, people perceive the
promotional price to be the actual price and if later when the product is returned to normal levels,
might threaten the future choice of people irrespective of its ending pricing.
Authors after conducting three experiments with the main order companies selling women clothing
priced moderately concluded that 9ending prices increases the demand of the commodity (Anderson
and Simister, 2003). Moreover, even for the new items the impact on demand was strong until the
“sale” sign was used. Their findings concluded that image effect has dominance over the level
effects.
Authors investigated to find the perception of consumer for the odd ending products when Euro were
introduced (Guido, Peluso, 2004). It was concluded that the consumers prefer round prices rather
than the odd ending prices. The odd ending prices gave a discounted image of the product which
often the consumers underestimate.
A research was done among 318 shoppers in order to check the preference for 99ending prices.
Results indicated that the low income, low educated, low involved shoppers and the young shoppers
are more prone to make a choice of 99ending products (Gaston-Breton, Charlotte, 2011). The
magnitude of the 99ending price product depends on the category of products and brand positioning.

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3. METHODOLOGY
3.1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Consumers tends to perceive that the product ending with 00 as high price and high quality items, 05
as average price with average quality items and 09 as low price with low quality on clothing and
electronic store. So what are all the factors that influences the consumers to perceive in that way and
what power does that 9 ending pricing have?
3.2 RESEARCH GAP
Previous papers have used the terminologies like psychology pricing, underestimate pricing. But
explanation for those terminologies and the factors that influencing the consumers to think in that
way is not been covered. Here, in this study we have used four different factors like price
consciousness, brand, quality and perceived cost which among these factors have greater influence in
perceiving 9 ending price as a low price.
3.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
The main objective of this research paper is to understand the psychological behaviour of the
consumers on 9-ending price of the product of clothing & electronics goods and to understand the
factors like price consciousness, brand, quality and perceived price among which influences the
consumers of different age, gender, geographical area and education background to believe that the
price ending with 9 as a low price.
3.4 RESEARCH QUESTION
 Does price consciousness behaviour of the consumer made to believe 9 ending price as a low
price?
 Are the consumers choosing any specific brand for the 9 ending price?
 Does the consumers believe that the 9 ending priced product are low quality?
 Are the consumers rounding-off the price to 200 if the original value is 299?
3.5 HYPOTHESIS FORMULATION
The central focus of this paper is to demonstrate the psychological factors that influences the
customers to believe the product of the price ending with9 as low priced product.
H0: (Null Hypothesis) There is no impact on psychological factors in the price decisioning process
of the consumer.
H1: There is a significant influence of price consciousness in consumers to perceive 9ending as a low
price.
Consumers above the age 25 are said to be more concerned about money saving. This could be one
of the factors that can influence the consumer behaviour towards the 9 ending price.
H2: The effect of 9 ending pricing strategy is dependents on the Brand of the product.
H3: The effect of 9 ending pricing strategy would be depend on the Quality of the product
H4: Perceived cost also would be one of the factor to affect the 9 ending pricing strategy.
FIG: 3.5.1
. .
3.6 METHOD USED
The data for this study is collected via primary source. Data has been planned to collect from 81
individuals. Our sample of data will comprise of people from different educational background,

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different culture, different income category and different languages. A questionnaire which
comprises of questions that cover the factors like price consciousness, brand, quality & perceived
cost which among these factors influences the psychological behaviour of the consumer. It will help
us to understand the psychological pattern of the consumers and an attempt has been made to show,
how consumers’ socio-demographic factors and psychological patterns lay impact on their attitude
and buying behaviour.
3.7 QUESTIONNAIRE
Gender : Male ( ) Female ( ) Prefer not to say( )
Age : Below 18( ) 18-25 ( ) 26-50 ( ) 51 and above ( )
Geographical Zone : North () South () East () West ()
Educational Qualification : U.G.( ) P.G.( ) Other ( )
Profession : Student( ) Software professional ( ) Entrepreneur ( )
Homemaker ( ) Other( )
Income : Below 100,000 ( ) between 100,000-500,000 ( ) Above
500,000 ()
Do you think 9ending pricing has a psychological impact, when you choose a product? (Yes/No)
(1-SD-Strongly disagree, 2 –D-Disagree, 3-N-Neutral, 4- A-Agree, 5-SA-Strongly Agree)
Price Consciousness
S.NO
Items
Strongly
Agree (5)
Agree
(4)
Neutral(3)
Disagree
(2)
Strongly
Disagree (1)
1
I always prefer the products
with the 9 ending
2
Products ending with 9
suggest that the product is
low priced
3
9 ending pricing of the
product grabs more
attention than others
4
A price ending with 9
suggest that the product is
available at discount
5
A price ending with 9 gives
a feel that the product value
is recently reduced
Brand
S.NO
Items
Strongly
Agree (5)
Agree
(4)
Neutral(3)
Disagree
(2)
Strongly
Disagree (1)
1
I only purchase from
specific brands which uses
9 ending price
2
In spite of brand I used to
buy product ending with 9
3
9 pricing strategy of high
end brands makes me to
believe it is low priced
Quality
S.NO
Items
Strongly
Agree (5)
Agree
(4)
Neutral(3)
Disagree
(2)
Strongly
Disagree
(1)
1
I believe that the quality of

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the product is high in 9
ending
2
A product with 9 ending
price makes me believe that
the product is with low price
and low quality
3
A product ending with 9
means that the product is not
reliable
4
A product ending with 9
gives me a doubt it is a good
quality
5
I prefer product with 9
ending because it gives me a
feel of low price with high
quality
Perceived Cost
S.NO
Items
Strongly
Agree (5)
Agree
(4)
Neutral(3)
Disagree
(2)
Strongly
Disagree
(1)
1
I round-off the product
value to 300 if the price of
product ends with 399
2
I always round-off the
price of product which
ends with 9
3
I always have a perception
that the product with
9ending pricing are low
priced
4
If any of the electronic
goods or clothing value
ends with 9, I will
purchase the product
without any second
thought
5
I only purchase the
product that ends with 9
because I perceive it to be
the low cost
Purchase
Intention
1
I intended to continue
purchasing 9 pricing
products
2
I will always purchase
from 9 ending pricing
products in daily needs
3
I plan to continue to
purchase 9 ending

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frequently in future
4. DATA INTERPRETATION
Primary research has been conducted to study the psychological impact towards 9 ending price. The
total sample consist of 81 respondents out of which 34 were female and 36 were male. Consumers
from different educational background, income level, profession, age group were studied to interpret
the impact on the 9 ending price. Multiple regression and ANOVA testing tools has been used to
interpret the data.
This study interprets that the purchasing intention of the consumer depends upon the perceived cost,
price consciousness and quality of the product. It also signifies that these factors give 64% of
weightage to the dependent factor i.e., purchase intention. Out of all these factor quality of the
product plays a significance role in it.
H1: There is a significant influence of price consciousness in consumers to perceive 9ending as a low
price.
From the research, it is interpreted that the consumer has significant influence of price consciousness
towards perceiving 9 ending as a low price. Consumers who are said to have high price conscious are
consumers between the age group 18-25 & women by gender, UG as educational background,
consumer with below 1, 00,000 as their income level, consumers from east geographical zone of
India and Entrepreneur by profession perceive 9 ending strategy as a low price.
H2: The effect of 9 ending pricing strategy is dependents on the Brand of the product.
It is interpreted from the research that the consumer preferring any particular brand of product,
doesn’t have any significant influence towards 9 ending pricing strategy.
H3: The effect of 9 ending pricing strategy would depend on the Quality of the product.
Interpreted from the research, consumers show that there is a significant impact on quality of the
product in the 9 ending pricing strategy. And out of all the other four factors quality of the products
plays a significant role in the 9 ending pricing strategy. Consumers who are said to perceive 9 ending
products as low quality product are consumers below 18 & between 18-25, UG as educational
background, Consumer with below 1, 00,000 as their income level, consumers from north
geographical zone of India and Entrepreneur by profession perceive it as low quality products.
H4: Perceived cost also would be one of the factor to affect the 9 ending pricing strategy.
From the research, it is interpreted that the consumer has significant influence of Perceived cost
towards 9 ending pricing strategy. Consumers who are said to have high Perceived cost factor are
consumers between the age group18-25, UG as educational background, Consumer with above 5,
00,000 as their income level, consumers from east geographical zone of India and Entrepreneur by
profession.
5. LIMITATIONS
Our study was limited to only geographical zones and further we could not research emphasizing on
the rural and urban areas. At the same time, we did not target any particular state and the research
gives an overall view of the consumers across states.
6. FUTURE DISCUSSION
The study can be taken targeting particular segment of people belonging to any state or area for the
better perspective and understanding.
7. CONCLUSION
From the research it is interpreted that there is a psychological impact like educational background,
profession, income level and geographical zone in the determining 9 ending price as a low price.
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