WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
Do we have your attention? Good, because restaurants are trying to sneak things in under the radar on us…
Researchers at the Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell University recently conducted a study to try and help restaurants ($) figure out how to squeeze some extra dough out of customers eating at their establishments. What they found was that by eliminating the dollar sign ($$$$$$$$$$$$$) in front of the price items ($) on their menu, customers subconsciously spent more at their restaurants! Not only that, but writing out the price of the meal rather than using numbers also caused patrons to ($) spend more. The research concludes that, “”[W]e saw a significant spending difference for menus that presented prices as numerals only.”
This subconscious tactic ($) for getting us to pay more at restaurants must be thwarted. As prices are rising and portions are shrinking, restaurant chains are doing everything to keep their businesses going. While I’m all for taking one or two days a week to eat out ($) and keep my favorite local restaurants running, I’m not about to get tricked into spending more by the elimination of a squiggly little sign ($) in front of some numbers.
So now you know! Beware of subconscious tricks companies ($) will play on you to get you to consume more. Go into the meal ($) with a budget in mind and stick to it. And look out for the disappearance of that dollar sign ($), because ‘knowing is half the battle’!
P.S. by randoming placing dollar signs throughout this post, HackALife is training you to be on the lookout for the dollar sign and its endangered disappearance!