You will be able to recognise common pricing tactics and their effect on you.
On a Saturday morning Darren opened a shopping app to buy a phone charger and closed it twenty minutes later having spent S$202. A pair of earbuds was marked down from S$299 to S$179, and a "40% off, today only" banner was counting down above them. The charger, the thing he went in for, was S$23. Each step felt like saving money. His bank balance told a different story.
Lesson 2.1 introduced reference points, and Critical thinking and better decisions, lesson 5.2, Anchors and confirmation, shows how the first number in a discussion pulls every estimate that follows. Sellers know this and use it on purpose.
A crossed-out original price is an anchor. Next to S$299, S$179 looks like a bargain, a saving of S$120. But the S$299 may never have been the price anyone actually paid. Some products are listed at a high price for a short time, or at a price nobody expects to be paid, so that the "sale" price looks generous. What the earbuds really cost is S$179, and the question worth asking is whether they're worth S$179 to you, compared with other earbuds and with not buying any.
Countdown timers and "today only" banners add a deadline to the anchor. Deadlines cut the time you spend comparing, and the anchor makes the price look good in the short time that's left. Lesson 7.1 shows the same pairing at much larger sums, in property and car sales.
Free delivery thresholds work by changing what you compare. A week earlier, Darren's grocery order came to S$41 and delivery cost S$4.99, so the "free delivery at S$49" message made him feel that adding something was the smart move. He added a S$12 phone cable he hadn't planned to buy. Without it, he'd have paid S$45.99. With it, he paid S$53. He saved the delivery fee and spent S$7.01 more, on a cable he didn't need.
Bundles work in a similar way. "Three for S$10" next to "S$3.90 each" makes three feel like the sensible quantity, even if you only wanted one. Buying one costs S$3.90. Buying the bundle costs S$10, and the saving only exists if you would have bought three anyway.
Limited offers lean on loss aversion, from lesson 2.2. "Only 3 left" and "offer ends tonight" frame not buying as losing something. The thing you're told you'll lose is a discount on an item you didn't plan to buy an hour ago.
The other common frame is to quote a large cost as a small regular one. A phone advertised at "S$84 a month" is S$2,016 over a 24-month plan, which in this example is S$17 more than paying S$1,999 upfront. A gym membership at S$99 a month is S$1,188 a year. A course at "less than S$5 a day" can be a four-figure commitment.
Breaking a price into months, weeks or days isn't dishonest by itself. Plenty of costs are paid monthly. But the small number is easier to accept, and people compare it with the wrong thing: S$84 feels like a dinner out, when it's really a slice of a S$2,016 decision. This is the BNPL effect from lesson 4.1 without the BNPL.
There is one question that cuts through every tactic in this lesson: what is the total I'll pay, and would I buy this at that price if there were no offer?
Total means everything, delivery included, every monthly payment added up, and every item in the bundle whether you wanted it or not. No offer means imagining the same item at the same price with no crossed-out number, no timer and no threshold. If you'd still buy, the offer did no harm. If you wouldn't, the offer did the deciding.
Darren ran his Saturday through it afterwards. The charger, at S$23, he'd have bought anyway. The earbuds at S$179, without the S$299 anchor and the timer, he wouldn't have, because his old pair worked fine. Out of S$202, S$179 was spent because of how a price was framed, and he returned the earbuds within the app's return window. The cable from the week before was still in its packaging.
Keep an eye on the offers you're shown over the next few days, then pick one and work out its total price, and whether you'd pay that price with no offer around it.
Find one offer you were shown this week and write the total price and whether you would buy at that price without the offer.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).