This brought to mind something from Cialdini's book, Influence. In one of the case studies he argues that in the absence of a reliable way to assess the quality

This brought to mind something from Cialdini's book, Influence. In one of the case studies he argues that in the absence of a reliable way to assess the quality of something, consumers tend to use price as a proxy for quality. In his example, a jewelry store has been unable to sell one of their product lines, so the store manager leaves a note to an employee to mark down the jewelry by 1/2. The employee misreads the note and instead marks up the jewelry x2, which leads to the jewelry quickly being sold.