← Quora archive  ·  2011 Apr 16, 2011 06:47 PM PDT

Question

What are examples of manipulation of consumers' choices?

Answer

Expensive brands are stocked at eye level. Cheap brands on lower shelves. See Paco Underhill's Why We Buy for a lot more examples at the retail level.

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely has many examples of pricing influence. A guest blogger wrote a summary of this on my blog. Here's a relevant extract:

The Economist offered three subscription options:
  • Electronic alone: $59
  • Print alone: $125
  • Electronic and print: $125

So what would you guess people would choose? Would anyone choose the
Print alone option forgoing a “FREE!” electronic subscription? Not
likely. So, why is it even offered? Testing with 100 Sloan School
students, 16 chose Electronic alone and 84 chose the combined Electronic
and print option. Nobody chose the Print alone option (boy those Sloan
folks are smart aren’t they?). However when the irrelevant option, the
one nobody chose, was eliminated, another, equally bright, hundred Sloan
students divided 68 for Electronic alone and only 32 chose Electronic
and print. So…what happened here?

A couple of other examples are in the full review (and of course, the book itself):

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2008/0...