Have you ever wondered why gas was priced with 9/10 the of a cent per gallon? The answers are varied but it appears that back in the day when gas prices were a whole lot cheaper the oil companies used this tactic to make a little extra on each gallon. when the consumer looks at the price they do not notice the 9/10 and back when a cent was worth something it amounted to a nice profit. Nowdays the impact is a lot smaller and to the consumer who uses 500 gallons of fuel (Average usage) tht amounts to $45. $45 I could use for something else for sure. Studies have also found that when a price ends in 9 consumers buy more. And gas prices always end in 9. The oil companies get an extra $150 to 200 million dollars a year from this pricing. That is just a drop in the bucket to them. I have been trying to figure a way to get this pricing system changed. It just does not seem right that they post a price odf $2.999 a gallon and charge me $3.00 a gallon. I am still working on it, maybe the Commerce department is the place to go.
No one pays attention to the 9/10 when choosing a station to buy gas. It hides the extra cent the customer is actually paying.
Back when a penny was worth something, how do we get back, too much tax makes money worthless. That is an excellent point, fact, when I was a kid I could by two pieces of candy for a penny and we had stores called "Five and Dime", or just "Dime" store.
I remember seeing gas for 27 cent a gallon. The price of gas rose artificially, during wars in the Middle East, back then I think I remember gas at 18 or 19 but I think I am wrong, hard to remember the price in the late sixties, I was pretty young then.
Most everything is like that. A house selling for $200,499 or clothes for $12.99 or whatever. Most things end in the .95 - .99 range. Except Walmart. They drop back their prices to different amounts, like .88 or .93. Generally speaking, people tend to disregard that .99. I do, except I just round up to the nearest dollar. You should see how annoyed some sales folks get when I ask about a product and round it up. They're always quick to correct me to the 'actual' price. Yeah, right. The gas one is sneaky cause the $3.01 is big but the 9/10 is small, so you don't even really register it when you see the price. You note the $3.01 and think that's how much it is. Sneaky bastards, aren't they? heh
My point is that we cannot pay the 9/10 of a cent so it is in reality a whole cent and if we want truth in advertising and pricing for other products we buy it should be eliminated for the gas prices. To that end I have already started contacting people to see if I can get it changed. It may be like throwing pebbles at a charging elephant, but a pebble thrown into a lake can cause some ripples.
1: The price is posted; there's no 'truth n advertising' issue. 2: 0.9 cent becomes 9.0 cents when you buy 10 gallons 3: The pump rounds to the nearest cent - so, sometimes it rounds up, sometimes it rounds down. Ultimately, the consumer has control over when that happens.
