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Retail Psychological Price Tricks You Can Apply to Vending Machine Pricing
Nayax strives to help vending operators transition into a cashless world. Our cashless payment solution can help you change the way you would traditionally price your products. With Nayax, operators can look to the world of retail, which has employed many psychological price strategies to influence consumers. A lot of these tried and trusted tricks can be applied to vending to get your consumers to spend more money at your machine.
1. Charm Pricing
In the past operators were limited by round numbers since they needed their vending machines to return banknotes and coins to consumers. Without the need to consider cash, Nayax operators can consider charm pricing - prices that end in 90, 95 or 99 cents. Because consumers pay more attention to the numbers to the left of the decimal points this strategy makes the price appear cheaper than it is.
In retail this strategy is applied to items large and small, and it can also be effective in small amounts such as $1,49 vs. $1.50. Even though the difference can be only a few cents, charm prices drive sales more than whole prices. With Nayax’s cashless payment solutions installed on your vending machine, this strategy can now be applied to your pricing. This strategy could also be effective with kiddie rides, laundromats and photo booths and other unattended machines.
2. Price anchoring
Sometimes consumers need a little context before they are prepared to buy a product. To boost vending sales of items consumers regard as too pricey, operators can consider a well-known retail tactic: price anchoring.
This is where retailers place premium products directly next to standard items to create a sense of pricing relativity for consumers. This is why you sometimes see one or two high-end items in a store that don’t seem to sell much. The expensively priced item makes the consumer comfortable with the standard item’s pricing and can influence consumers to think the standard item’s pricing is reasonable.
This approach can also be used in vending where several items in similar categories are sold in one machine, such as different types of snacks and beverages. This increases the sales of items that would otherwise be considered expensive.
3. Prestige pricing
With cashless payment options, vending operators are now able to sell larger and pricier items including technology, brand cosmetics, luxury food items, or even wearables like clothing or shoes. If you sell more high-end products in your vending machine, prestige pricing might be the strategy for you.
In prestige pricing, unlike charm pricing, vendors price items in whole numbers and leave off the decimals. Whole-numbered prices communicate to consumers that items are high end and luxurious. The markup in pricing is not for any reason beyond the fact that if the item is marked too low, the consumer will wonder if the item is faulty or think it undesirable.
4. Price variation
If there are too many options in a category it can be difficult for consumers to choose what product they want. A large range of products can even discourage a purchase. Similarly, if there are too many options in the same price category, shoppers may have a hard time deciding which product to buy.
In this situation consumers might choose not to act and put off the decision, deterring impulse shopping. With cashless payments, operators can vary the prices by tens of cents, and defuse any indecision. Operators can also look at the most and least popular selling items in a machine via Nayax’s Management Suite and play with price to determine the best pricing for their product mix.
Customize your pricing strategy
These are a handful of popular retail psychological price strategies that vending operators can adapt when pricing their product mixes. We encourage you to try some of these strategies out and see how your sales rise. Don’t forget to use the data in Nayax’s management software to find a happy medium for your pricing strategy.
