Does the introduction of the Euro have an effect on subjective hypotheses about the price‐quality relationship?

Abstract

Abstract Product prices are often considered to be an indicator for quality. In our experiment we focussed on the question if consumers' hypotheses can be biased by exchanging the digits on price displays due to currency changes. We found that high numbers in a price expressed in terms of a currency with a relatively low value (German Mark) lead to a higher perceived quality level than an equivalent price expressed in terms of relatively high listed currency (Euro). Contrary to our expectations we could not prove that this effect is stronger for premium than for low‐budget products. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.