True pricing – guiding consumers within a new pricing paradigm

True pricing is an innovative pricing approach, internalizing external costs in the final selling price, thereby increasing prices in general and more the more unsustainable offerings are. It is important to understand how to best communicate true prices at the point of sale, to guide consumers in their decision-making. Here, we present the results of a large-scale survey experiment with 1400 Dutch and Danish consumers, investigating the effect of the true price presentation format (absolute, relative or no information) on consumers’ choices. Our results show that importance of price differs depending on the presentation format. Further, consumers with a stronger belief in the price-quality relationship are more prone to accept higher true prices (i.e., less sustainable options), which is reversed by consumers’ understanding of true pricing. We contribute to the marketing literature on price presentation format as well as true pricing and provide managerial guidance on implementing true price communication.