Like American travelers who avoid the 13th floor in hotels, Chinese shoppers tend to avoid anything beginning or ending with the number 4 -- si in Chinese, a homophone for "death." It's no coincidence, for example, that the Encore hotel in Las Vegas skips Floors 40 through 49; Chinese high-rollers won't take those rooms. On the other hand, 8 (ba in Chinese, which sounds like fa, meaning "prosperity") and 6 (a word suggesting smoothness) are widely considered lucky.
According to Yang, retailers in China simply jack up their prices to avoid 4 as the first or last digit. Yang analyzed prices for more than 11,000 Beijing area products, including food, electronics, and clothing. He found 8 statistically over-represented and 4 under-represented. "The use of superstitious numbers in pricing and the exploitation of superstition in retail sales is more than a cultural phenomenon," Yang concludes. "Given its ubiquity, the use of superstitious numbers in prices should not be viewed as a mere marketing gimmick, either."
