For many consumers, low prices are often equal to cheap products. While everyone loves a good bargain (特价商品), low prices can harm how your product is viewed. Instead of getting a great deal, customers often believe that you get what you pay for. Though everyday low-pricing strategies can work for some companies, they’re not always the best idea for certain lines of business.

Consumer perceptions play a significant role in strategic pricing. Despite all the promotions surrounding great deals, it turns out that cheaper isn’t always better. Research from Vanderbilt University suggests that low prices can backfire because consumers sometimes see them as signs of low-quality products. However, researchers also found that consumers sometimes see low prices as simply good deals. Shoppers’ perceptions depend on what they’re thinking about when deciding whether or not to buy a product.

If consumers come across a low-priced product or service, they may see it as either a good deal or not worth their time and money. How consumers think about price is just as important as the actual price itself.

Consumers rarely have complete information and use various strategies to fill gaps in their knowledge when considering products. One strategy involves using naive theories: informal explanations used by consumers to make sense of their environment. A consumer may perceive an upscale (高档的) company’s prices are too high or assume discount retailers’ (零售店) products are inferior (次的) due to its reputation being associated with lower quality items than other stores selling similar goods.

Companies can influence how customers feel about their low prices by conducting market research and improving marketing strategies focused on highlighting product quality rather than just value alone which tends towards making people rate cheaper products more favorably. When companies focus on the product quality in marketing materials, consumers look more favorably upon more expensive products. However, when companies focus on value, consumers rate cheap products more favorably.

Businesses can also identify their customer base and narrow their marketing efforts to become perceived as a specialist. This leaves customers less likely to question pricing strategies because they trust that the company knows what it’s doing and has done its research into what works best for them.

Store owners have been inventing new tricks to get consumers into their stores and purchasing their goods. Even as we find new strategies to resist, neuroscientists (神经科学家) are employed at marketing agencies across the country to best figure out what is going through a consumer’s brain at each point in the decision process.

We consumers overspend due to the fact that we have a fear of missing the really good deal or having to pay more for the same thing and lose money. Normally, the prefrontal cortex ( 前 额皮 层 ) controls our emotional reactions to things, and keeps us from acting unreasonably by calming down our fears. But an advertiser can disturb our prefrontal cortex just by displaying flashy deal signs, encouraging it to do math on how much money we might save now by buying more of something we don’t actually need yet.

Nostalgia, that regretful affection for past events, is another strong influencer during the holiday season, and it’s shaped by emotion. Emotion—whether good or bad—enhances the formation of memories, engaging more parts of the brain. So hearing a nephew singing a carol, for instance, might reawaken memories associated with that particular song in a much more powerful way than hearing that same nephew sing another song. These kinds of memories are brought back even more easily by sensory input. This might be why we are often greeted by a sensory reminder everywhere we go in a month.

Wherever you purchase gifts, there are social influences on what you buy as well. The holidays are a time when we are especially conditioned to pay more for the label because we’re buying gifts. Receiving a brand-name gift sends the message that “this person has spent more on me, so he or she must value me more.” And it makes sense. If two things seem pretty much the same, how do I know which to choose? Humans have survived as a social species, and we have to rely on each other. So when our brains are trying to make decisions, one of the shortcuts is to assume that if a lot of other people prefer something (and higher cost is often a predictor of that), then there must be a reason.

Much of our holiday spending is driven by unplanned purchases. Plan ahead, resist the urge to purchase in the moment, make notes for comparison shopping, and if the deal is actually good, then it will hold up to inspection and you’ll feel good about your purchases later. Before you blow your budget this season, remember that your brain might be fooling you into that next purchase.

Your local grocery store is a psychological minefield (布雷区)，where even the bananas are ripe with mystery.

1．Southpaws (左撇子) have an invisible (看不见的) advantage

You've probably seen that stores keep go-to items—produce，meats，dairy—on the outer edge.But did you notice that most of them are set up to make you run counterclockwise (逆时针)? Ninety percent of us are right-handed，so we buy more when it's counterclockwise.You'll also often find the dairy section in the back left corner：Because dairy is likely on your list，stores make sure you take the longest route to get there.In fairness，it's also a more convenient place to put a fridge.

2．Everything is in its place

It's safe to say that nothing you see on a shelf is there by chance.The cookies on sale at the end of a passage are likely the result of smart product placement.More expensive items are usually placed at an adult's eye level，while colorful treats and other products for kids are positioned lower—to catch the attention of children.

3．Time goes by so slowly

Stores rarely have windows or clocks.With no reference to the outside world，customers can easily lose track of how long they've been there so that they can buy more.Grocery stores may use another trick to control your sense of time: small floor tiles (瓷砖)．