The Day I Sold for One Cent Less

I had a small shop.
Nothing fancy.
Wooden shelves that creaked under the weight of hands,
and an old register that rang with the honesty of simpler times.

I sold what I could:
soap, cookies, phone chargers,
and sometimes, dreams disguised as everyday things.
Everything had clean, round prices.
Q10. Q15. Q20.

I liked that.
Straightforward.
Honest.
Something about whole numbers made me feel fair.

Until one day, Don Rafael walked in.
An old merchant from downtown,
with eyes that had closed more deals with silence than with sales pitches.

“Why do you price everything so exact?” he asked, no greeting.

“Because it’s clear,” I said.
“It’s honest. Fair.”

He looked at me the way someone looks at a younger version of themselves,
just before they say something that changes everything.

“Why not make it Q9.99?” he asked.

I frowned.
It felt like a trick.
Like something big stores did to fool people.

“People aren’t stupid,” I told him.
“One cent doesn’t change a thing.”

Don Rafael smiled—
the kind of smile that comes from watching many others say the same thing,
before learning.

“It doesn’t change their wallet, son,” he said.
“It changes the decision.
It changes how the brain feels the price.
You're not lying—
you’re speaking their language.
We don’t just sell things.
We sell perceptions.”

I didn’t say anything.
But that night, I couldn’t sleep.
That one cent—so small, so meaningless—
was suddenly louder than anything else in the shop.

The next morning, I took a black marker
and quietly changed a few tags.

Q10 became Q9.99.
Q20 became Q19.99.
No signs, no fanfare.
Just a small shift.

I didn’t rearrange the shelves.
I didn’t dim the lights.
I didn’t announce a sale.
I only changed the price by one cent.

And then… something happened.

Sales went up.
Not by much.
But enough to notice.

People lingered longer.
They asked more questions.
And most importantly, they decided faster.

There was a pause before the “yes”
that now passed more quickly.

A woman picked up a jar of cream and said,
“Q19.99? That’s not bad at all.”

And I smiled softly.
I thought to myself:
“It’s the same price as yesterday—
but today, it feels gentler.”

That’s when I learned:
selling isn’t just putting things on shelves.
It’s understanding how the eyes, the heart, and the wallet speak to each other.

And from that day on,
I stopped underestimating small things.

Because in the world of business,
sometimes the biggest shift
doesn’t come from earning one more quetzal…
but from letting go of just one cent.