Price Font Disfluency: Anchoring Effects on Future Price Expectations

Novel, unique, or otherwise disfluent fonts are often used to draw consumer attention. However, disfluent fonts may also create metacognitive processing challenges. Therefore, consumers may devote more cognitive resources to process disfluent price fonts and will consequently be more likely to accurately recall and anchor on disfluent price displays when forming their future price expectations. Three experiments demonstrate that disfluent sale prices can reduce future price expectations, while disfluent manufacturer-suggested retail prices (MSRPs) can increase future price expectations. Additionally, price recall accuracy mediates the effect. Moderation analysis demonstrates that disfluent MSRP displays are more likely to affect price-conscious and less-involved consumers.