Scandal - prices totally left-leaning!
There are repeated discussions about abolishing "small change": Namely, the one-cent coin, and preferably the two-cent coin as well. It is well known that the cost of producing the one-cent coin exceeds its value, and many small coins are lost or hoarded. Above all, however, supporters argue that it would be easier to pay with cash at the till, as prices would then have to be rounded. However, retailers would be faced with an important question: rounding - but to what? Here comes a lesson from Israel: there, the equivalent of the cent, the agora, has already been abolished as the smallest coin, but so has the five-agorot coin. So what do you do if the price was previously, say, 3.99? Simply round up to 4, or round down to 3.90? Well, retailers have nothing to give away, and rounding down is not in their nature. Accordingly, most have rounded up - and lost sales. Because for many customers, the product was now too expensive. This less than rational behavior can be explained: By the left-digit bias, which means that people always focus on the number on the far left first. The more numbers that follow, the less they are noticed. And so rounding up costs a lot of money. In any case, most retailers in Israel quickly changed their pricing policy and rounded down. With this in mind, it is no wonder that there are many fans of small change in the retail sector. And the next time the person in front of us at the checkout says: "Wait, I've got it right!" - we relax, take our time and explain the "left-digit bias" to our companions!
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