Which of these amounts would you rather pay?

Are your clients or customers ever rude to you?

Would you like to encourage them to be politer to you in their dealings with you?

If you do, then you may be interested in the approach that the La Petite Syrah coffee shop in Nice, France has adopted.

Their pricing policy is pretty unusual and the price you pay for your coffee there depends on how polite you are.

If you walk in and simply order “un cafe” (a coffee) it will cost you €7.

If however, you walk in and say “un cafe, s’il vous plait” (a coffee, please) then it will only cost you €4.25. The accountants amongst you will realise that this represents a cost saving of €2.75 just for saying please.

It gets better though.

If you walk into the coffee shop and say “bonjour, un cafe, s’il vous plait” (hello, a coffee, please) you will get your coffee for €1.40. So, just by saying “hello” and “please” you’ll save €5.60 compared to the €7 “rude” order.

There’s a history of friendly rivalry between the French and the English and I wonder whether this would mean that if you walked in and ordered a coffee in English rather than French it would cost you €10??

Either way, it’s certainly a novel approach to pricing and we wish La Petite Syrah the best of luck with it.