Coca-Cola

From 1885 til 1950 coca-cola was a nickle. For 70 years the coca-cola did not increase in price. other things around coke like gas, television, butter, corn, cars, etc the price grew.

Daniel Levey became very intrigued when he was visiting the coca-cola museum and being an economist wondered about the nickle coke and how is never rose in price. Andrew Young said that the price never changed in an attempt to attract customers but noticed that flavored fountain drinks like grape soda etc went up to as much as 10 cents. By May 8 1886 Atlanta was the first sale of coca-cola.

By 1899 two lawyers went to the president of the coca-cola company and asked to bottle coke. Instead they got a fixed price on the coke syrup at 90 cents a gallon. The problem was that bottled coke took off.

If coke were to increase is wouldn't go towards coke it goes towards the bottlers. Another reason why the price in coke was kept down was because of advertising. 5¢ was the main focus of the ads and was prominently featured.

One way that people could make money off of coca-cola instead of raising the price was to give out smaller glasses to people who were getting coke from the fountain, or use less syrup in the mix.
In 1921 sugar started to rise and the company started to loose money. But coke stayed at a nickle.

One reason why coke didn't change the price in coke was because of its advertising campaign and how long it would take to paint over the buildings that had 5¢ coke on the side of it, coca-cola trays,etc.

Another great invention that helped out the coca-cola business was the vending machine. The most important reason why the price of coca-cola stayed at a nickle was because the machine only took one coin and that was a nickle.

Single coined plan was introduced as an idea that might help the coca-cola business to get more money for each bottle of coke that they sol but doing it threw the vending machines. The plan was that every 9th bottle that came out of the machine was an empty bottle so that people would have to put in another nickle to get another bottle of coke this time a full one. Basically is was an extra 5.62 cents that consumers were paying. Eventually in 1946 vending machines gave change.

 The one and only thing that made coca-cola go up in price was inflation. When ingredients to make the product go up the price of the product has to go up.  1959 was the last nickle coke to be sold. 



At the end of the podcast they talked about how all prices give us that same feeling when they increase. That statement really made me think about it and think of how true it is. prices shouldn't chance and with that feeling is a psychological component that makes us think that way. Companies know this so instead of increasing the price of products companies will shrink a product and raise the price. For example, fewer potato chips in bags, instead of a pint of ice cream they give you 15 ounces etc.
Nickle cokes price was the longest constant in history but wasn't really a bad thing.