It has been widely believed that price communicates quality to consumers. Examples of products for which pricing strategies reflect this belief include perfume [25], coffee [25], stockings [19], and whiskey [31]. Many studies [2, 14, 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, 34] have provided empirical support for the proposition that price communicates quality. These studies, however, were of limited scope and generally presented the subjects with an unrealistic experimental situation. This study had two purposes: to determine whether price would act as a communicator of quality in a shopping situation more realistic than the experimental situations previously used, and to attempt to shed light on the reasons con