Effect Of Decimals On Spending

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31079, 7 June 1966, Page 17

Effect Of Decimals On Spending

Decimal currency is still troubling some Australian retailers, according to Mr M. J. O’Neill, chairman of Mark Foy’s. Mark Foy’s, one of the big- bet £2O now bet 20 dollars, gest department stores .in It seems there is a big Sydney, was still feeling the psychological change when effects of the change-over to a new currency is introduced the new currency, he said and it will be interesting to last week see its effects here.

Apparently customers are hesitating when they see something priced at 20 dollars when they know it used to be £lO in the old money. This effect on retail trading has been noticed and commented on before, both by Australian retailers and by New Zealanders in retailing who were in Australia to watch the change-over. Mark Foy’s made an overall loss in the latest year, but decimals were only part of the problem, Mr O’Neill told shareholders at the annual meeting. Restricted economic conditions and a general lack of confidence had hit retailers, he said. But the store, near the increasingly less fashionable southern end of Sydney, is suffering because the city’s down-town area has been reincarnated. Decimals are also causing minor upsets in other sectors of the Australian economy, apparently. Used car dealers—or at least some of them—are quoting trade-in prices for cars in dollars, but offering the cars they are selling in pounds. Perhaps they have good intentions and just want the customer to go away with the feeling that he has the best of both currencies. Australian bookmakers are also noticing the change to the new currency. Some of them say that people who used to bet £lO are now content to bet 10 dollars: those who used to