Stores actually make more money when they let you see their lower online prices while you're shopping in person—even if you haggle for the discount.
March 27, 2026
Original Paper
Deceptive Pricing and Price Credibility: The Effect of Disclosing Online Prices
SSRN · 6422940
The Takeaway
Conventional wisdom suggests retailers should hide lower online prices to protect their profit margins from haggling. Instead, disclosing the lower price acts as a 'credibility anchor' that boosts the consumer's perception of value so significantly that the increase in total sales more than offsets the money lost during price negotiations.
From the abstract
Retailers often post reference prices above transaction prices to frame discounts. However, in multichannel environments, this practice can become misleading when an online listing displays a stated "in-store" list price that exceeds the actual in-store list price for the same SKU. When offline purchases are finalized through face-toface negotiation, such inflated list-price claims can distort both consumer beliefs and negotiated outcomes. Using transaction-level data from a multichannel retaile