You have seen the pattern: a product permanently marked down, with a countdown timer and a strikethrough price that has never actually been charged. It works. That is why it is everywhere.
How the trick works
Set a reference price high, run a sale most of the time, and let the customer feel they are capturing a deal. In several jurisdictions this is illegal; in most it is merely rude. Either way, the number you pay is the number the seller intended you to pay.
What we do instead
- One price, listed plainly.
- If we over-order, we discount and say why on the product page.
- No countdown timers. No only-2-left unless the inventory system says two.
- No email-gated discount for a price we could have shown you.
Why this costs us money
Honest pricing converts worse in the short term. A fake sale outperforms a fair price in every A/B test we have seen. We accept that because the alternative is a customer who eventually works out the game and stops trusting the number.
How to check any store
Look up the product on an archive site and see whether the original price ever existed. It takes thirty seconds and it is remarkably clarifying.
The long version
A shop should be boring about money: this is the price, this is what it does, this is how long it lasts. Everything else is theatre.