"You didn't want your penny did you?"

SHIPSHAPE

arcon5 wrote: »

No, that's not why. Its simply because £9.99 sounds less than £10.

Actually, items, especially clothes, were delibrately priced like this from the early 70's as it was seen by stores as keeping assistants aware & alert in doing the math to total several items at the till rather than simply add together rounded, whole numbers.

Back in the day many tills didn't add amounts, just recorded the sale.

Even receipts were often hand written.

This price structure is just one of those things that survives to this day.

SHIPSHAPE

I have noticed this occurrence of not giving the odd penny or two several times lately and all at...ASDA, in store and at the fuel pumps.

And these ASDA stores have been two different ones but in the same city.

No other store seems to do it.

The last time the girl at the fag kiosk didn't have 4p, so I asked did she have 5p and she said yes but she couldn't give me that! Instead I, an individual, had to take a 4p loss rather than a huge business like ASDA taking a 1p hit!

I reckon something is going on!

antrobus

SHIPSHAPE wrote: »

Actually, items, especially clothes, were delibrately priced like this from the early 70's .....

More like the 1870s. Items were typically priced at eleven pence and three farthings rather than a shilling, for example. The idea being to force the sales assistant to ring the sale up on the till and gain access to the change, rather than simply pocketing the shilling and handing the goods over to the customer.

miss_independent wrote: »

....

Today I bought a sandwich from a well known bakery for lunch and a bottled drink. ...she told me £2.65 ... so gave her £2.66. She closed the till after putting the money in then stared at me blankly. I was waiting for my change and my receipt. She then said, "You didn't want your penny did you?"..... Also, I would have liked a receipt as (sods law) my drink tasted really weird and I think it was off. ......

So no change and no receipt. I hope you can see where I'm going with this. The SA concerned is now possibly £2.66 better off.

SHIPSHAPE

antrobus wrote: »

More like the 1870s. Items were typically priced at eleven pence and three farthings rather than a shilling, for example. The idea being to force the sales assistant to ring the sale up on the till and gain access to the change, rather than simply pocketing the shilling and handing the goods over to the customer.

.

I hinted at the early (19)70's due to the decimal coinage change where 100 whole pence was a new concept.

After all, £9.99 couldn't have existed before that.

Alex-Riley.

SHIPSHAPE wrote: »

I have noticed this occurrence of not giving the odd penny or two several times lately and all at...ASDA, in store and at the fuel pumps.

And these ASDA stores have been two different ones but in the same city.

No other store seems to do it.

The last time the girl at the fag kiosk didn't have 4p, so I asked did she have 5p and she said yes but she couldn't give me that! Instead I, an individual, had to take a 4p loss rather than a huge business like ASDA taking a 1p hit!

I reckon something is going on!

something (with a bit more money) like this happened to me in calender club the man didn't have enough change (i think i needed £4 change) but what he did was ask me if I had another pound so I handed over another pound and got a 5 pound note back (very good customer service)

cali_

But that's the thing. If we, the customer is a penny or two down,

- the retailer won't sell you the item.
- The bus driver won't let you on the bus.
- The ticket machine won't print your ticket. and so on

So why shouldn't the customer receive their change?

NiallB

arcon5 wrote: »

No, that's not why. Its simply because £9.99 sounds less than £10.

Historically it's for both reasons, the psychological effect on consumer spending but also to produce an audit trail and combat employee fraud.

WelshBluebird

SHIPSHAPE wrote: »

Actually, items, especially clothes, were delibrately priced like this from the early 70's as it was seen by stores as keeping assistants aware & alert in doing the math to total several items at the till rather than simply add together rounded, whole numbers.

Back in the day many tills didn't add amounts, just recorded the sale.

Even receipts were often hand written.

This price structure is just one of those things that survives to this day.

Sorry, but I think it is more that £9.99 sounds less!
Or am I too cynical?

soothyerboots

unholyangel wrote: »

If you see my post #27, apparently it is not rightfully yours. It is theirs.

Nope. This is not the case.

moneypooh

I stopped for petrol the other day and they had chocolate bars on offer at the till. I only wanted a small bar of galaxy for my son and the SA tried to convince me to buy one 4 times bigger, but only 30p more expensive. I said I didn't want the bigger one and he seemed shocked because the bigger bar 'was much better value for money". He was quite pushy but I didn't budge. He really didn't understand that I didn't need a bigger bar, the cost really wasn't the issue. In times where childhood obesity hits the headlines everyday pushing bigger bars of chocolate isn't really appropriate regardless of the savings?