persuasion
Anchoring
What is the anchoring effect?
Anchoring is the way the first number you see sets the frame for every judgement after it. Show a high price first and the real one feels like a bargain - not because it changed, but because you now have something to measure it against.
Also known as: anchoring effect, anchor bias
The demo
The same lamp at the same £39. Flip the anchor on and off and watch how the price feels - a steal, or just a price - even though the number never moves.
Aurora desk lamp
Was £120
£39
Save 68%
Switch the anchor on and off and notice how £39 feels different.
What this demo shows (text version)
A product card for a desk lamp priced at £39. In "with anchor" mode the card also shows a crossed-out "Was £120" and a "Save 68%" badge, so £39 reads as a large discount. In "no anchor" mode those are removed and only £39 is shown.
The selling price is identical in both modes - only the reference price beside it changes. With the £120 anchor present, £39 feels cheap; without it, there is nothing to judge it against. That is anchoring: the first number frames how every later number is read, whether or not the anchor was ever a real price.
£39 felt like a steal next to a crossed-out £120, and merely fine on its own. The lamp never changed price. The first number did all the work - that is the anchor, quietly telling you what "cheap" means before you've decided for yourself.
Anchors don't have to be honest to work. A "was £120" that the product never actually sold for still drags your sense of value upward - which is why inflated reference prices are a regulated grey area. The effect is real; the question is whether the anchor is true.
You feel it far beyond pricing: the first estimate in a planning meeting, the first salary named in a negotiation, the most expensive plan listed first so the others look reasonable. My habit is to notice the first number on any page and ask who chose it, and why it's the one I met first.