Price-Endings and Seller Signals in Online Second-Hand Retail: Evidence From a Large Consumer Marketplace

Price-ending strategies such as “. 90” and “.99” are widely used in retail settings, yet little is known abouthow they operate in consumer-to-consumer online marketplaces where individual sellers, trust cues, andspatial competition shape listing behaviour. Using a large dataset from Austria’s leading online second-hand platform, we examine how price-endings relate to listing prices, seller characteristics, and localmarket structure. Sellers using rounded price-endings list items at higher prices, and these endings remainassociated with meaningful premiums. Price-ending choices also vary with local competition: sellerssurrounded by more nearby listings show different propensities to adopt particular endings. The findingscontribute to research on retail pricing and consumer decision-making by showing how psychologicalpricing interacts with trust signals and spatial competition in a digital second-hand retail environment.