OverLinked

Here are a few examples of site issues that Google says might be slowing down your site:

• High Priority: Enable Keep-Alive and leverage browser caching.
• Medium Priority: Combine images into CSS sprites and minimize redirects.
• Low Priority: Minify JavaScript and remove query strings from static resources.

Visit google’s expirimental speed tool to test your site:

http://pagespeed.googlelabs.com/

So, to the results. The summary points are:

1. Prices ending in .99 no longer have any advantage in consumer value perception, and do not lead to higher sales.
2. The optimal penny value varies by country. In the United States, it is .01.

This is from the Inon.com pricing behavior study and shows an interesting result in our over-use of the “$0.99″ price point. Consumers have been saturated with the ninety nine cent idea, and are reaching out for price points that make sense – and have almost the same value, but seem more cognitively approachable.

Does this mean that a bit of reason has set in? More likely just plain old cynicism – most now distrust loud marketing hype… but it sets an interesting stage for retailers now to find their newest price point. Maybe retailers will now benefit from making an extra 2 cents on each and every barcode they scan through the check out lane.