How Retailers Use Anchoring to Shape What Feels Like a Fair Price

Why That Crossed-Out Number Exists

Walk through any retail store or browse almost any e-commerce site, and you'll see it constantly: a price with a line through it, sitting next to a lower number in bold. The crossed-out figure is called an anchor. Its entire purpose is to give your brain a starting point — a reference that makes everything measured against it feel like a relative gain or loss.

Retailers didn't stumble onto this by accident. Decades of consumer psychology research confirm that people don't evaluate prices in isolation. They evaluate them relative to something. Set the reference point high, and the selling price feels like a win. Remove the reference entirely, and shoppers have to form their own judgment — which is far less predictable for the seller.

The anchor doesn't have to be real to be effective. A manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) that was never the actual street price, a briefly inflated 'was' price that appeared for a few days before a markdown, or a premium product placed beside a mid-range one — all of these function as anchors. They shift your internal number line before you've made any conscious decision.

The Common Forms Anchoring Takes in Retail

Anchoring isn't limited to crossed-out price tags. Once you know what to look for, the pattern shows up across the entire shopping environment:

• High-low pricing: Retailers set an inflated 'regular' price, then discount frequently, so the sale price feels like the reward for shopping at the right time.
• MSRP displays: Showing the manufacturer's suggested price alongside a lower shelf price implies savings without guaranteeing the MSRP was ever the real market price.
• Decoy products: A premium version of a product placed near the standard version makes the standard seem affordable by comparison, even if the standard is still expensive relative to alternatives.
• Bundle anchoring: Showing the combined individual item prices before presenting a bundle price frames the bundle as a bargain, regardless of whether the bundled items are ones you'd have bought anyway.

Online shopping adds another layer. Dynamic pricing means the 'original' price a strikethrough references may have existed for only hours. Online deals can obscure true costs in ways that mirror — and sometimes amplify — in-store anchoring tactics.

How to Neutralize the Anchor Effect

The most effective counter-strategy is to replace the retailer's anchor with your own. Before you shop, decide what you'd consider a fair price for an item — without looking at any marketing. Then use external references to test that figure:

1. Check unit pricing. For groceries and household goods, the cost-per-unit figure (often on the shelf label) lets you compare products by actual value rather than by sticker price. Unit pricing is one of the most underused tools in retail shopping.
2. Use price-history tools. Browser extensions that track historical prices on major retail sites let you see whether a 'sale' price is genuinely lower than the item's typical selling price.
3. Search the market independently. Look at what comparable items — not just the same item — cost elsewhere. A crossed-out $120 next to $79 means little if equivalent products sell for $65 routinely.
4. Ask the anchor-free question: Cover up the original price and ask whether you'd consider the sale price fair if that were the only number visible. If the answer is no, the anchor was doing all the work.

As a general principle, treat 'sale' as a display — not a guarantee of value. The discount is relative to the anchor; your decision should be relative to the market.