Companies Will Start Reading Your Mind To Figure Out How Much You're Willing To Pay

From Fastcoexist.com (Oct. 18):

The price that companies set for their products is already a high-stakes game of psychology and competitive strategy. But there’s still a lot of guesswork and uncertainty. Would pricing be more simple and profitable if market researchers could just read consumers’ minds?

Like it or not, such “feel good” pricing could be coming down the product pipeline.

The German news site Spiegel Online last week profiled the provocative work of a Swiss neuroscientist and former sales consultant who is devising a method of measuring brain waves to determine how much a person would be willing to pay for a good or service. Testing his theory has led the researcher, Kai-Markus Müller, to conclude that Starbucks is not actually charging enough for its expensive coffee. In fact, it's probably leaving profits on the table because people would probably still buy it if they charged more.

Müller figured this out by targeting an area in the brain that lights up when things don’t really make sense. A coffee for 10 cents? The brain reacts unconsciously because that is so cheap. A coffee for $8? The brain also reacts because it’s too expensive. Measuring our brain activity in this way apparently can get at optimal pricing. [read more]

Interesting. An unscrupulous gov’t could use this technology to figure out how much it should tax you. Or even possibly regulate you.