Sunday evening, Novi Sad. Nikola sits on the sofa with a laptop on his knees, planning a trip to Montenegro. The flight is bought, the accommodation in Budva is booked. The car is the only thing left.
He opens the website of a small rent-a-car agency from Podgorica. At the top is a big SUV: a hundred and twenty euros a day. Nikola raises his eyebrows and scrolls on. A compact car, forty euros. "Well, that's almost a gift," he says out loud, and clicks to book.
Nikola didn't judge the forty-euro price. The number he saw before it did.
This is how anchoring works. In 1974, the psychologists Tversky and Kahneman described how the first number we see pulls later estimates toward it. We don't calculate from zero. We start from whatever has already been put in front of us.
Numbers have no weight of their own
Forty euros a day is neither cheap nor expensive. It only becomes one or the other when we compare it with something. Most buyers don't know what a small car costs to rent in Montenegro in July. They have no yardstick in their head, so they look for one on the page.
And the first thing they find becomes the yardstick. Everything after it is measured against that number, not against real value.
The same price, two impressions
Picture the same page in reverse order. At the top is a small car for twenty-five euros, and only below it the compact for forty. Nikola would now think forty euros was too much, and that a pricier option had crept in somewhere.
The car is the same. The price is the same. The agency is the same. Only the number that came first has changed.
That doesn't mean you should lead the buyer by the nose. It means the order on the page isn't a technical question, but part of the message a brand sends.
Where the anchor hides in your business
The rent-a-car page
Most agencies list their cars from cheapest to most expensive, because that looks logical. But that makes the lowest price the first number, and every next car feels like a price increase. When you start from the premium offer, the middle class looks like a sensible choice. Both orders are legitimate, but you should choose between them knowingly.
An apartment in high season
The guest sees "from €60 per night" at the start, and when they pick August, the price is ninety. The first number stays in their head, and ninety feels like a trick. Had a realistic range stood there from the beginning, "€60 to €110 depending on the season", no later number would have surprised them.
The airport transfer
The taxi at the terminal exit often has no stated price, so the guest doesn't know what is reasonable. A website that shows a fixed price for the transfer to Budva or Kotor becomes the yardstick for everything else. The traveller carries that figure along and compares it with what they hear in the taxi queue.
Anchoring in moderation
This principle is easily abused. A crossed-out "old price" that nobody ever paid, or an offer nobody ever buys, placed only to look expensive, will sooner or later be recognised. A guest who feels deceived doesn't remember the discount. They remember the deception, and they pass the story on.
An honest anchor is one with a real offer behind it. If you have an SUV at a hundred and twenty euros, let it really be available to rent, and let it really be what the page says it is.
Set the first number
- Look at the page through a stranger's eyes. Open it as someone who has never heard of you. Which number do they see first? That is your anchor, whether you chose it or not.
- Decide what you want the yardstick to be. The most expensive option, the most popular one, or the package price. Let the first number be the one that makes the rest an honest comparison.
- Show a range instead of a single figure. "From €60 to €110" prepares the guest for what they will see later, without an unpleasant surprise.
- Add value next to the price. A number without context is just a number. Insurance, free cancellation, airport pickup: that is what gives a price its shape.
- Try a different order. Change the sequence for a month and compare how many enquiries arrive and which package gets chosen. The answer will come from your own data, not from theory.
Nikola and the SUV
Nikola rented the compact car for forty euros and was convinced he had got a good deal. Maybe he had. But he didn't know it because he had worked it out. He knew it because someone had shown him a hundred and twenty first.
The agency owner in Podgorica didn't deceive him. He simply, knowingly or not, decided what Nikola would see first. And that is a decision made once, on the page, that then works every day in his place.