RE: Consumption, sales & psychology
Precisely! There is also a concept called "the decoy effect". For example, you go to the cinema and want to buy popcorn. There are three sizes, a small for 3 dollars, a medium for 6.5 dollars and a large for 7 dollars. Note that the medium is not 5 dollars as it should be. That's because the point of the medium size is not for people to actually buy it, but for small to appear too small compared to the others, and make people think that they could take the medium, but, "well, for half more dollar I can get the large one". That's how they end up buying the large one for 7 dollars that would otherwise appear very expensive to them.
This is the interesting field of behavioral economics. I have personally read the book "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions" by Dan Ariely and it is now one of my favorite books. The author explains how people's decisions are influenced by seemingly insignificant actions. You can also read this article on the decoy effect and check out the referenced books below.
Thanks for sharing that about the "decoy effect", that example you just gave is a perfect one. If I had those options I will surely chose the larger popcorn so the decoy effect certainly works on me :).
Which one would you buy?
ps: I checked the article, and its a very well written, they also put an example using the Macbook's prices although in that case I did think the price was increasing accordingly with no decoy effect.