How vertical placement of price tags triggers subconscious value perception — and how to test it in digital, retail and B2B environments

A bottle of gin sold 35% better when its price tag moved from above to below the shelf.

Same product. Same price. Same store.

Just… flipped. That’s all.

Psychologists call this a conceptual metaphor.

Our brains are wired to map “down” with “less” and “up” with “more.”

Stupidly simply, but it’s proven.

When you put the price below the item, it mentally feels lower—even though it’s not.

Researchers proved it again in a lab setting: a $2.49 item placed with the price under the product was perceived as nearly 10% cheaper than when shown above.

This wasn’t framing.

Wasn’t discounting.

Wasn’t clever copywriting.

It WAS the invisible impact of vertical alignment.

Conceptual metaphors shape how we process all kinds of information.

We associate “higher” with “more expensive,” “better,” or “luxury.”
We associate “lower” with “budget,” “affordable,” or “easier to obtain.”

The metaphor is so powerful, it works in:
Shelf displays
E‑commerce grids
B2B sales decks

And it only breaks when we disrupt that pattern—like if someone’s been trained to think “down” means “depth,” “complexity,” or “bulk pricing.”

In D2C, this might mean testing product pages where pricing sits below the image and headline, not top-right in bold. Let the metaphor carry the work.

In retail, rethinking shelf tags, signage, and endcaps.

In B2B, resist that instinct to drop the price in the headline.

Tuck it beneath benefits.

Let your value story set the context first.

You’ve probably seen websites that put the price high and big, thinking it builds trust.

Sometimes it does.

But most often it makes that number loom larger than it needs to.

In I Need That, I talk about how buyers don’t evaluate prices in isolation. They process value emotionally, relationally, and yes, spatially.

Every detail of presentation carries meaning.

You’re not tricking people by putting a price lower on the screen.

You’re showing respect for the human brain.

Want to boost purchase intent without touching the dollar figure?

Try moving the price tag, not the number on it, down.

Forward this to someone who sets pricing, or reach out to my team of product marketing strategists at Graphos Product.