---
product_id: 7575148
title: "Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It)"
brand: "william poundstone"
price: "$54"
currency: NZD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 9
url: https://www.desertcart.nz/products/7575148-priceless-the-myth-of-fair-value-and-how-to-take
store_origin: NZ
region: New Zealand
---

# Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It)

**Brand:** william poundstone
**Price:** $54
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) by william poundstone
- **How much does it cost?** $54 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.nz](https://www.desertcart.nz/products/7575148-priceless-the-myth-of-fair-value-and-how-to-take)

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- william poundstone enthusiasts

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## Description

Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It)

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![Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81AUaOoLbxL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Fun-to-read, entertaining, educational, topical
  

*by R***N on Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2010*

There is an intriguing irony (if not synchronicity) to my purchase of this book.The story is, I had been trying to buy this book for a few weeks from Amazon.But I couldn't (without incurring shipping fees), because Amazon had delisted the hardcover book from their catalog. Why would Amazon refuse to sell a new book by a prominent author? Well, ostensibly it was "retaliation" for the book publisher's (Macmillan's) request that Amazon charge higher prices for Kindle books published by Macmillan. Leaving aside the question of why users without a Kindle should have their ordinary book access restricted because of a pricing dispute over a product they do not want, the imbroglio raises two salient issues about pricing:(1) Why is $9.99 (what Amazon wanted to charge) the "right" price for a Kindle e-book? Why not $12.00 or $14.00 (which Macmillan wanted to charge)? If you read some of the Kindle users' blogs, they are adamant that $9.99 is the right price, and that $14.00 is too high - but how do they know?(2) Why would Macmillan care if Amazon charges too little for Kindle pricing anyway? It doesn't directly affect their profits (Amazon makes up the difference).Well, as it turns out, the underlying framework behind both of these questions is carefully discussed and elucidated in this very book!As to issue (1), Poundstone argues that much of what we think of as "fair" pricing is nothing more than a collection of cognitive fallacies and biases. The most important of these fallacies are the contrast effect (pricing taking on significance from neighboring prices) and the anchoring effect (we are drawn to a particular number).  Poundstone illustrates these effects, and the process by which their importance was recognized first in the literature and then in consumer practice, through a long series of vignettes that recapitulate the genesis and development of pricing theory, behavioral economics, and psychological decision theory. So as it issue (1), Poundstone would probably argue that many of the reasons people give to support $9.99 as being more "fair" than $14.00 are illusory - that pricing is far more fluid and idiosyncratic than most people appreciate.As to (2), Poundstone might argue that Macmillan is worried about the contrast effect. Macmillan would be concerned that even to a person who does not have nor intend ever to acquire a Kindle, the proximity of the $9.99 would make its hardback price of say $18.00 seem higher than it actually was to a consumer. So this book lends support to Macmillan's position as to issue (2).Now, let me briefly get to the meat of the book.The book is structured along the lines of that distinctive modern subgenre of popular economics books in which anecdote and biography are interwoven and are equal partners with theory and experiment. Careful measurements by colorful character, in the stories of these works, gradually overturns entrenched orthodoxy, first in a small-scale and then in the large. Popular exponents of this style include Malcolm Gladwell, whose Tipping Point, Blink, and What the Dog Saw are canonical examples; Michael Lewis, whose Money Ball described the impact of statistics on baseball; Thomas Bass, whose Eudaemonic Pie and The Predictors foreshadowed the more modern style and which treated the impact of statistics and nonlinear modelling (chaos theory) respectively; Sam Savage, whose Flaw of Averages is a good introduction to statistics in this style; and of course Steven Levitt with his Freakonomics series.This book is a worthy and interesting addition to the genre. Of the many interesting anecdotes, my favorite was probably Eskildsen and the World Trade Center, and how Las Vegas turned out to play a major role in the development of psychology. The cast of characters, including ex-Israeli soldiers among others, was very entertaining. And the theory, although of course subject to some carping (no confidence factors in many of the studies reported, for example) highlighted the key points clearly and gave the reader clear paths for further knowledge.Thus, I would recommend this book as a good introduction not only to pricing but also to behavioral economics and human decision-making generally.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Important introduction to customer's psychology
  

*by M***M on Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2018*

This book don't offer a standard pricing schema that you can use in your business because there is None.The book is a great introduction to the factors that MAY controls customer's interpretations of the price tag on a product or a service. but you will need to following your reading with other books discussing and explaining psychology in general and the behavioral economics specifically.the Author has gone through many theories and explained them very well through the book and listed many examples that mentioned and explained subjects behaviors.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Well wrtitten, entertaining, and informative
  

*by D***K on Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2010*

I found the book to be well written, entertaining enough that i finished its 336pp in three evenings of enjoyable reading.  I read some of the other less than stellar reviews and would wholeheartedly disagree with those critics on the value of this book. It simply proposes to tell one of how marketers use various gimmicks to control prices, and some of these are in subliminal manners. I was never under the guise that this book was meant to be considered a course in price theory, which would be a junior level course in a pursuit of a bachelors degree with a major in economics, but some readers might have thought that reading this one book would prepare them to challenge Greenspan or Summers on economic theory.  We all have our biases and prejudices in all areas of life, and PRICELESS helps to explain how and why we may feel in a certain way about the price of Gucci bag, a pair of Jimmy Choos, and etc.  The evidence provided is primarily anecdotal and not meant to be an all encompassing erudite study in economics.  If you want to read a very entertaining book on how many large marketers decide to set what they consider to be their optimal prices for their various products then add this book to your reading list.  If you want to become an economic expert, I would suggest enrolling in an institution of higher learning and expecting to take four years of concentrated study in that area before you even think of grad school.  I liked this book enough that I bought additional copies for each of my kids, so that should say how much I liked it.

## Frequently Bought Together

- Priceless
- Influence : The Psychology of Persuasion (New and Expanded)

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*Store origin: NZ*
*Last updated: 2026-02-21*