Why Nine-Ending Prices Persist

Researchers have offered several explanations for prices ending in nine: left-digit attention, bargain signaling, retail convention, and the older practical role of making staff open a cash register for change. No single explanation covers every market or buyer.

Today the ending works partly because it is familiar grammar. Affordable uses €0.99 openly as a cultural object, while checkout shows the exact charge and refuses to let one cent disguise the nature of the purchase.

The smallest digit can carry a century of retail habits.