Skip to Main Content

Priceless

The Hidden Psychology of Value

Published by Oneworld Publications
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

About The Book

The first book to reveal how everday pricing strategies manipulate us

Why do text messages cost money while emails are free? Why do cereal packets keep getting smaller? Why do department stores have a few extortionate goods that no one will buy? Why do so many prices end in 9?


In Priceless, bestselling author William Poundstone reveals the hidden psychology of value and explores how we react to the most pervasive persuader of all: price. Charting the burgeoning growth of price-consultants who advise retailers from Nike to Nokia, Poundstone shows how behavioural decision theory has revolutionised the pricing strategies of major corporations.
Informed by fascinating behavioural experiments and packed with real-life examples, Priceless explains why prices are so important, and the tricks that companies use to sell their goods. It will prove indispensable to
anyone who buys, sells, or negotiates.

About The Author

William Poundstone is the author of seventeen books including How to Predict Everything, How to Predict the Unpredictable and Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? He has written for the Economist, New York Times, Harper’s and Harvard Business Review, among others. You can find out more about him on his website: william-poundstone.com

Product Details

  • Publisher: Oneworld Publications (September 1, 2011)
  • Length: 344 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781780740331

Browse Related Books

Raves and Reviews

"[The book's] remarkably engaging prose style kept me glued to the page. Fascinating and fun, and I definitely think you should buy it. 5/5"

– BBC Focus

"[The book's] remarkably engaging prose style kept me glued to the page. Fascinating and fun, and I definitely think you should buy it. 5/5"

– BBC Focus

"Pricing is a richer subject than you might imagine. The smile that creeps onto your face when a shameless marketing gambit reminds you of something you read in Poundstone's book? Priceless.

– Business Week

"Bright analysis of the psychology of pricing … readable and revealing."

– Kirkus Reviews

"Switched-on consumers may think that they are wise to the marketing strategies thrown at them, but they should think again. Poundstone is your savvy, witty guide to saving the pound in your purse."

– The Times

"Switched-on consumers may think that they are wise to the marketing strategies thrown at them, but they should think again. Poundstone is your savvy, witty guide to saving the pound in your purse."

– The Times

"Pricing is a richer subject than you might imagine. The smile that creeps onto your face when a shameless marketing gambit reminds you of something you read in Poundstone's book? Priceless.

– Business Week

"All about the hidden psychology of value, it is a truly eye-opening account of how the pricing of products affects how we think of them."

– The Big Issue

"An instructive and entertaining romp, which will leave you amused, smarter, and wondering about what money and prices really mean."

– Daniel Kahneman - Professor Emeritus, Princeton University, and Nobel Laureate in Economics

"A powerful argument that should be a wake-up call to everyone who still subscribes to the old model of economics."

– Dan Ariely - Author of Predictably Irrational and James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at

Resources and Downloads

High Resolution Images

More books from this author: William Poundstone