McDonald's Japan finally adopts round numbers

[Mulboyne]

CBS: McDonald's Japan cuts prices
McDonald's Japan has cut the prices of some products at about 110 locations in the Miyagi and Hiroshima metropolitan areas of Japan, making them round numbers to convey a sense of value...The unit of McDonald's is now offering value meals for 500 yen at those locations. For example, the price of a chicken filet meal was cut 77 yen and a Filet-O-Fish meal 45 yen compared with nationwide prices...The company will consider expanding the price cuts nationwide.
Prices of individual items were reduced as well, the Nikkei said. The price of a Big Mac was cut by 12 yen to 250 yen, and the price of medium French fries and salads by 52 yen to 200 yen. Meanwhile, the Nikkei reported that some items saw price hikes. For example, the price of a hamburger was raised to 100 yen from 84 yen. And by setting prices at round numbers, the company hopes to alleviate employees' handling of 1 yen and 5 yen coins, which is expected to reduce congestion at the registers, the report said. The Nikkei reported that the company had kept its prices unchanged even as many fast food chains adjusted prices to round numbers when a law went into effect last April requiring stores to display prices inclusive of the 5 percent consumption tax.

[Caustic Saint]

Rounding the prices off makes sense, especially since tax is included in the prices. The 1 and 5 yen coins are pretty useless anyways, much like the penny in the US. (The nickel's not entirely worthless, since vending machines still accept them.)

I remember when AAFES (the Army & Air Force Exchange Service) stopped giving out pennies with change in Korea. It was costing them more to deal with shipping pennies back and forth to the US than they were actually worth, so they began rounding off customers' change to the nearest 5 cents. They'd still take pennies if you wanted to pay with them, but wouldn't give them out. They should just go the extra step and round off their prices too, since there's no tax to worry about on base.