Marketing Traps Hidden in Prices

The Trap in Pay - by - Weight Pricing

It seems cheap when you look at the single item, but when you calculate the total bill, you'll find it's actually quite expensive. That's the trick.

Recently, a new restaurant opened. It offers self - selected dishes and charges by weight.

I've experienced this model a long time ago. For example, in college, some school canteen stalls used this method, weighing and pricing meat and vegetables separately.

The good thing about this model is that you can pick as much as you want and choose a wide variety of dishes.

However, the pitfall is that people tend to pick too much, and it's hard to control the quantity. People are greedy. They want to try many different dishes, so they end up picking too much or too many kinds.

You might think 20 bucks is enough for a meal, but when you weigh your selection, it costs 30 or 40 dollars.

If you calculate everything by weight, with the same 20 dollars, you can get more food from a fast - food joint than from a pay - by - weight place.

So why do some people think pay - by - weight is cheap and a good deal? It's because we're easily misled by the unit price, since the measurement units are different.

For instance, it charges by ounces. You see how much it costs per ounce and then compare it with a 15 - or 20 - dollar fast - food meal. You'll mistakenly think the pay - by - weight option is cheaper. But in reality, once you've weighed your food, you'll find you can't just eat a little. You usually end up choosing quite a lot.

This is a trick played with the measurement method, making the numbers look small to seem cheap. Sometimes, other methods are used to make the numbers look big to make it seem expensive or make you feel it's really worth it.

Take the loose snacks in the supermarket, for example. They're actually more expensive than the packaged ones, but many people think the loose ones are cheap and often buy them.

The loose snacks look cheap. They're unpackaged and scattered, and you can weigh as much as you need. But when you calculate the price per piece, it's quite high.

When you have a choice, try to avoid this situation. At least, don't be fooled by this kind of trick.

The Role of Reference Points in Pricing

As we've talked about before, to judge whether a product's price is high or low, you need a reference point or an anchor.

This approach is often used in various marketing strategies.

Take e - commerce for example. The price you see on the search page is the cheapest option among all the choices, like 19.9 dollars.

But when you click in, you'll find that the product corresponding to the 19.9 - dollar price doesn't meet your needs at all. That is, the product at this price is different from the picture and product description shown on the outside.

You have to choose other styles, and then the price jumps from the teens to 39.9 dollars.

There's also the price - comparison trick. Two products have similar prices, but their values are quite different. Take smartphones as an example. They have the same configuration except for the storage capacity.

One phone with 256GB of storage costs 3000 dollars, and the one with 512GB costs 3300 dollars. With all other configurations being the same, which one would you choose?

Most people would choose the 3300 - dollar 512GB phone. After all, you only pay 300 more dollars, but you get a lot more storage.

But most likely, you wouldn't be willing to spend 300 dollars on a hard - drive separately.

There are multiple price - comparison relationships here. On one hand, compared with 3000 dollars, 300 dollars seems like a small amount.

On the other hand, when comparing 512GB with 256GB, it's obvious that the 512GB option has a higher cost - performance ratio.

So most people will choose the 512GB phone, especially since phone storage is becoming more and more insufficient these days.

So why not just get rid of the 256GB model? It's because without the 256GB model for comparison, how can the high cost - performance ratio of the 512GB model be highlighted and make you willing to place an order right away?

It's like this: without something bad as a reference, how can you know what's good? Without something ugly for comparison, how can you tell what's beautiful?

When there's only one price and one product, it's hard to judge whether it's good or bad. The same goes for people. If you don't know many people, you'll think everyone in the world is like that and take it for granted.

Those so - called 'white moonlight' memories are just a result of the few people we met in our childhood.

Daily Reading & Writing by Xiaolu 2025.04.26 [Day 600]