Odd-Even Pricing

A pricing tactic in which prices are set just below round numbers — ¥980 instead of ¥1,000, ¥9,800 instead of ¥10,000 — to trigger a “lower price tier” perception. Because consumers categorize prices primarily by their leftmost digit (the left-digit effect), a ¥20 reduction can shift a product into an entirely different mental price bracket.

Popularized in U.S. retail since the 1930s, the technique is ubiquitous across Japanese e-commerce and physical retail. Conversely, luxury brands deliberately use round or prestige pricing to avoid the “budget” signal that odd-ending prices carry.