온라인 쇼핑몰의 제품 가격 끝자리 연구: 한국, 독일, 미국 시장을 중심으로

One of the fastest-growing areas of the Internet is online shopping. Many of the products sold in online shopping malls come to the market at prices that end in 9 or 0. Although many studies on price endings have been conducted in other countries, a study on Korean price endings was first conducted in 2021. In this research the price endings in Korea and Germany will be examined and compared using price information about products in online shopping malls. The American market has been included for further analysis. The goals of this research are twofold. The first goal is to understand the use of price endings in Korea, Germany and America. It is assumed that there are differences between both countries, because price endings are also affected by the culture and the currency unit of a country. This study aims to understand how Korean, German and the US marketers strategically utilize price endings by investigating characteristics of prices in Korea, Germany and the US. Specifically, this study examined the number of digits in the price, where decision-making is mainly made and the numbers that are frequently used at each price digit. Results show that Korean online shopping mall’s price ending decisions are most commonly made at the second rightmost and the third rightmost (10s & 100s place) digit. At the rightmost (last) digit, most prices end with 0. At the second rightmost (10s) digit, the number 0 is most common, followed by 8 and 5. At the third and fourth rightmost (100s & 1000s) digit, 0 & 9, and 5 & 8 are the most common numbers. In Germany's online shopping malls, most prices end with 0 in the rightmost digit. At the second rightmost (10s) digit, the number 9 is most common, followed by 0. At the third rightmost (100s) digit, 9, 5 and 8 are the most common numbers. The second goal of this research is to test empirically the influence of product characteristics on the use of price endings. Specifically, the influence of different price levels, and high-involvement vs. low-involvement products on the use of round prices (i.e. prices that end with 0s) and odd prices (i.e. prices that end with 8 or 9) were tested. The results are the following: First, as the price level is higher, round prices are more frequently used and odd prices are less frequently used in Korea. Second, in the case of Korea, the use of odd prices for high-involvement products was less frequent, while in Germany it was found that the use of odd prices was less frequent at the second rightmost digit. In addition, both Korea and Germany showed a higher round index of round prices for high-involvement products compared to low-involvement products. As a result of further analysis, it was found that in the United States odd prices were used more frequently in high-involvement products and less frequently in low-involvement products. For the first time, this study empirically analyzed the effect of price endings for Korean, German and American online shopping mall products.