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Obtaining consumer opinions through organized marketing research is essential to modern marketing. But this implies fairness to consumers, and not abuse of their confidence. The Marketing Research Code of Ethics approved by the American Marketing Association spells out minimum ethical standards for researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the impact of the "9 fixation" in retail pricing and its effect on sales promotion. Studies by researchers Charles W. Hoyt Company and by Max Brunk are examined, having demonstrated that retail food prices ending in odd digits are much more common than those ending in even digits, and that prices ending in 9 are commonest of all. Customer resistance to certain digits in retail prices are discussed. The implications of these studies for retailer seeking to maintain a consistent gross margin are detailed.

This article presents an editorial discussing how to plan a questionnaire tabulation schedule. The author says market surveys typically many variables which will be tabulated for the final report, which can be any demographic identifier. Researchers cross-reference two of these identifiers to yield beneficial marketing information. A sample matrix is shown to distinguish between areas where cross-tabulations will be made, where they will not be made, or where they may be done later.

Across three laboratory studies, a biometric eye tracking and facial recognition experiment, and a secondary data analysis, we reveal the unique interaction of consumer numeracy and numerical processing fluency as a significant determinant of consumer response to 99-ending prices. We argue that less numerate individuals create mental analog representations around 99-ending prices' left digits, whereas highly numerate individuals encode 99-ending prices as their one-cent neighbor, with consumers responding more favorably to prices when they mentally encode them around a fluent number. Specifically, highly numerate individuals respond more favorably when 99-ending prices (e.g. 17.99) border a fluent number (i.e. 18). Conversely, less numerate individuals respond more favorably when 99-ending prices (e.g. 16.99) contain fluent left digits (i.e. 16). We provide empirical evidence for the effects of this processing difference on liking, purchase intentions, and actual sales. We also obtain evidence for the underlying process using eye tracking and facial recognition that reveals that highly (vs. less) numerate individuals exhibit less anxiety when processing multi-digit prices, and consequently fixate sooner, more frequently, and for longer durations on the right digits of a price. The findings contribute significantly to the price processing literature and yield substantial managerial implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In traditional Chinese superstition, the numerical digit 8 is associated with prosperity and good luck and the digit 4 is associated with death. An examination of the price endings used in a sample of Chinese price advertisements indicates a distinct tendency to favor the digit 8 and to avoid the digit 4. These results constitute evidence of the role of superstition in the Chinese marketplace and provide guidance for setting prices in this increasingly important market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a controlled experiment, use of the 99 rather than the 00 price ending (e.g., using $49.99 rather than $50.00) affects the impression created by a price advertisement. The 99 ending increases the likelihood that viewers judge an advertised price as relatively low and as representing a discount. However, in addition to these price-image effects, the 99 ending has negative effects on quality image in the ads sponsored by higher quality retailers. These results suggest that the choice of rightmost digits is an important executional variable in price advertising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of the rightmost digits of selling prices in a sample of retail price advertisements confirmed past findings indicating the overrepresentation of the digits 0, 5, and 9. The high cognitive accessibility of round numbers can account for the overrepresentation of 0- and 5-ending prices and suggests the existence of two effects that could account for the overrepresentation of 9-ending prices: (1) a tendency of consumers to perceive a 9-ending price as a round-number price with a small amount given back and (2) a tendency of consumers to underestimate a 9-ending price by encoding it as the first round number evoked during incomplete left-to-right processing. Analysis of the patterns of rightmost digits observed in the sample provides supportive evidence particularly for the second of these two 9-ending effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the heavy-half proportions studied by Twedt and others. The models that are developed illustrate the importance of explicitly including a stochastic component when analyzing individual consumer behavior. The need for appropriate chance models with which to compare empirical findings is also demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]