The use of 9‐ending prices: contrasting the USA with Poland

American multinationals, when deciding pricing strategies for their culturally diverse foreign markets, usually have to debate whether to change or to keep the pricing strategy that they have been using at home. The recent move towards standardization in global markets has only raised the importance of this issue. This research addresses this issue by comparing the effectiveness of 9‐ending prices or just below prices in the USA and in a Central European country, Poland. A conceptual framework was developed to predict why there might be differences in preference for such 9‐ending prices in Poland and the USA. Results from the first study show that 9‐ending prices, which are popular in the US market, are not well received in the Polish market. The second study provided further insights by determining reasons for differences in perception and preference for such prices in the two countries.