The the midst of gloomy economic times, businesses are looking for new ways to maximise their bottom line.
I was reading an interesting new study from the Cornell Hotel School that has found that the average customer spend in restaurants was higher when menus leave off the dollar sign. (ie 30.00 rather than $30.00).
The study also found that the format of leaving the dollar sign off was more beneficial than the format of worded pricing (ie "Thirty dollars").
In the study, customers using menus with pricing without dollar signs spent an average of 8% more than customers using the other two formats.
It would probably take a human psychologist many pages of gobbly-gook to qualify why this is so. There is obviously something in that pesky dollar sign that makes the price seem more intimidating than it really is. Removing the dollar sign would appear to make the remaining dollar amount smaller and more achievable. It may take away the fact that the figure is currency - suddenly it becomes a softer appealing figure and puts customers more at ease...
...well it sounds good anyway!
Can we some how relate this study to how the motel industry advertises room rates, breakfast, mini bar price etc and expect similar results?
So....by dropping the dollar sign can we expect an 8% increase in motel guest spend?
Almost sounds too good to be true.
