“I Don’t Feel Good When My Pocket Is Too Full After A Purchase”
This situation doesn’t just happen with high-end services. In the book Influence: Science and Practice, Robert Cialdini also describes a story of a friend who ran an Indian jewelry store in Arizona that tried to sell some high quality turquoise pieces during the peak tourist season167.
Despite her constant efforts to promote, cross-sell, and emphasize these pieces to shop visitors, no one seemed interested in purchasing them. Finally, the night prior to an out-of-town buying trip, the owner concluded that she needed to lower the prices and make the pieces more attractive to her customers. As a result, she left a note for her head salesperson with instructions to reduce the prices by “x½.”
However, the salesperson misunderstood the note, and mistakenly doubled the price instead. Upon returning a few days later, the owner was pleasantly surprised to learn that all the pieces...