Retail products (food, consumables) qty shrinking, price THE SAME! (no surprise)

[wilfred]

However buying 9000ml in 1000ml bottles is 9 bottles and 10 bottles in the 900ml size. It might cost the same per ml. I don't think it does because they can reflate the price up nearer the threshold they were avoiding crossing.  For a supermarket that proudly stops single use plastic bags they conveniently ignore the additional plastic in the extra bottle. Don't get me started.

So you are exactly the person who didn't and doesn't pay attention to per unit pricing, otherwise you would have noticed the the cost going up with the package getting smaller. Enjoy overpaying for your daily consumables.

In my own convoluted way that's pretty much what I was saying. They only have to keep the package price  below some fixed value. The per unit price is elastic as long as the ticket doesn't go over $5 say.

I buy them when they're 1/2 price . Which is quite often.

And you were spot on with the brand.

[I wanted a rude username]

here in my country

Sounds like Eastern Europe.

[Gyro]

It's curious that, despite the shrinking sizes, the consumers of these products seem to keep getting larger. 

[tggzzz]

It's curious that, despite the shrinking sizes, the consumers of these products seem to keep getting larger. 

I've sometimes idly considered that companies might use shrinkflation to demonstrating that they are helping combat obesity.

That will probably appear as a newsthump article or Private Eye cartoon sometime.

[Yansi]

here in my country

Sounds like Eastern Europe.

Isn't it the exact opposite?

[SerieZ]

Maybe we should return to the times where the Baker was flogged in public when he used less flour in his bread.
 Just sayin...

[Yansi]

I'm no old-timer by any means, but sure I can see some interesting concepts that have worked in the past.

At least if you don't want to go with the stream to those multi-über-extra-market places with goods of questionable quality, you can still visit your local butcher, bakery, hardware store, etc... Luckily these shops still exist round here, even in small cities.

[tggzzz]

Maybe we should return to the times where the Baker was flogged in public when he used less flour in his bread.
 Just sayin...

Consider semi-skimmed and skimmed milk. My father always said they would have been illegal when he was young

[vk6zgo]

Also, here is a picture of 9-egg carton, as opposed to a more traditional 10 egg pack.

This was ridiculed so hard, that they actually quickly stopped doing that. But you can see their thinking here.

Nescafe' instant coffee originally came in 500g cans.
They got clever & started using 400g cans, which the retailers sold for a little bit less, so it looked like a price reduction.
It went over like a wrought iron hanglider, customers started buying other brands, so the 500g cans were restored.

This stuff is quite expensive in Oz, at around $A20 a 500g can, normally, but is fairly regularly discounted to $A14, so people try to find a chain with a sale price.

I was walking through Aldi, something I rarely do, & I saw cans of Nescafe' for $A14.95, which was "near enough".
When I picked up a can, it seemed a bit small, & sure enough, it was one of the 400g ones, which I thought were defunct!

That didn't improve my opinion of Nestle's or of Aldi .
I already knew the other retailers were scumbags!

[SerieZ]

Maybe we should return to the times where the Baker was flogged in public when he used less flour in his bread.
 Just sayin...

Consider semi-skimmed and skimmed milk. My father always said they would have been illegal when he was young

Even uttering the word skimmed Milk might land you a Death sentence (or at least stare) here in Switzerland. 

[Bud]

Also, here is a picture of 9-egg carton, as opposed to a more traditional 10 egg pack.

This was ridiculed so hard, that they actually quickly stopped doing that. But you can see their thinking here.

The packaging box seems to be better to handle though. I am always extra careful with those regular long and skinny egg crates.

[tggzzz]

When I picked up a can, it seemed a bit small, & sure enough, it was one of the 400g ones, which I thought were defunct!

That didn't improve my opinion of Nestle's or of Aldi .

Aldi started after WW2, buy buying and reselling anything they could get their hands on this week. It is in their DNA

And Nestle is just ... Nestle. 'Nuff said.

[I wanted a rude username]

Isn't it the exact opposite?

No idea about 3roomlab's location, but if you mean the opposite side of the globe, there are certainly similar conditions in parts of South America. Also the problem of a poorly developed refrigerated supply chain, as you move inland.

[SL4P]

Yes, the cycle culminates with the introduction of a "new, larger size!". It's the opposite of cars, which tend to grow with every generation, forcing manufacturers to introduce smaller ones at the bottom end.

I saw a documentary many years ago, about the Toyota Corolla...
Selling primarily as a drivers ‘first car.’, or the second car in a larger family.
They grew the car with each generation to track the original buyers personal growth as they aged, married and had kids... the car/model was familiar - so the customers just bought another Corolla, until they became more affluent, then bumped up to a Corona or Crown(at the time)..!
You can still see that today when new entry level models are launched by manufacturers.

[james_s]

I hate this. I completely understand the need to increase prices, but when they try to hide the price increases by making the product smaller I notice and I feel like I'm being cheated. It makes me less inclined to buy more of the product in the future.

[coppercone2]

how about equipment chassis wall thickness?


The walls are getting so thin, you don't need to panel beat anymore if there is damage. Just puff up your chest and give it a good exhale. Altoids tin is starting to look like anti tank armor with all the use of plastics.

Mechanical engineers are slowly robbing us 

right.. to keep 'weight' down. One of the computer towers I got was so floppy it looked like a bugs bunny cartoon, you can sneeze on the thing and dent it. 

You used to need a dial indicator to see pressure waves in metal.. now you set down a equipment chassis and it looks like your unrolling the red carpet (and you are, to some persons ferrari).

 now stuff will sound like a Chinese gong if not for the powder coat

Fucking stain calculators... and how houses are built... 

[SparkyFX]

I wonder how long they can go on like that.

These topics are partially in the responsibility of the national metrology institutes, as long as there are "slack fill" regulations about package size indicating more volume than actually present.

So not only the net weight labeling counts, but also the volume of the container. There is however not much to do if both shrink for the same price, that's the rule of the market then, don't buy it.

What i find helpful is that stores need to state prices per 100g or per kilogram additionally to the price of the item over here. Its much easier to compare.

[Muttley Snickers]

What i find helpful is that stores need to state prices per 100g or per kilogram additionally to the price of the item over here. Its much easier to compare.

I keep an updated list in my phone of what to buy and from where as many products are exactly the same but labelled and priced differently, for instance Aldi sells Topz biscuits which are identical to Ritz but on average are a dollar cheaper, it's the same for many other products as well. 

I shop at all three major chains, Aldi, Coles and Woolworths and the latter is the only supermarket where we need to use two shopping trolleys, one is for the shopping and the other is used to cart around the mantis microscope so we can read their prices, the price per unit fonts are tiny.

[eti]

It's curious that, despite the shrinking sizes, the consumers of these products seem to keep getting larger. 

A simple rule applies: if you want more, buy more. I reckon that's why. It's not as if there's wartime rationing in place.

[eti]

Also on the horse shit bandwagon, here in England (and I am sure in other locales too):

-- "Artisan" food
-- "Dairy-free" / "Gluten-free" food
-- "Finest" bollocks - Tesco & Sainsburys use this ALL the time (I trust Sainsburys way, way more though; they're a decent lot on the whole) . My Mum even said to me, last night - "It's one of their 'finest' pizzas, it's luxury, it has proper mozarella, and..." yadda yadda...  yeah, I sighed inside  sorry, WHO says they're the "finest" products/ingredients? Oh yeah, THE BRAND DOES.
-- "Organic" veg/fruit (erm, ALL fruit grows organically - duh)

etc, won't be too rhetorical.

[Halcyon]

I shop at all three major chains, Aldi, Coles and Woolworths and the latter is the only supermarket where we need to use two shopping trolleys, one is for the shopping and the other is used to cart around the mantis microscope so we can read their prices, the price per unit fonts are tiny.

Woolworths have started rolling out e-ink shelf tags in several NSW stores. They even come in colour :-)

[eti]

I shop at all three major chains, Aldi, Coles and Woolworths and the latter is the only supermarket where we need to use two shopping trolleys, one is for the shopping and the other is used to cart around the mantis microscope so we can read their prices, the price per unit fonts are tiny.

Woolworths have started rolling out e-ink shelf tags in several NSW stores. They even come in colour :-)

Ah that's fantastic; finally a solution to the age-old problem of... erm, oh, hang on... QUICK - someome find a water-tight, provable justification for it - QUICK!

[Halcyon]

Ah that's fantastic; finally a solution to the age-old problem of... erm, oh, hang on... QUICK - someome find a water-tight, provable justification for it - QUICK!

There is something quite nice about e-ink displays. It's nice to finally see them on shop shelves. It would mean a lot less work for staff. Simply push new prices out over the air. Everything gets updated at once, the POS system, Website price and shelf price.

[ataradov]

Ah that's fantastic; finally a solution to the age-old problem of... erm, oh, hang on... QUICK - someome find a water-tight, provable justification for it - QUICK!

They can be updated automatically from a central database. You can change prices in real time. Just like Amazon does.

[eti]

Ah that's fantastic; finally a solution to the age-old problem of... erm, oh, hang on... QUICK - someome find a water-tight, provable justification for it - QUICK!

They can be updated automatically from a central database. You can change prices in real time. Just like Amazon does.

And when all this "smart" junk goes wrong, then what? A shelf-stacker could remove a paper slip and replace it in around 2-5 seconds, and no servers needed. Yet another example of making a simple, age-old system over complicated "just because"; just because you CAN do something, doesn't make the fact that you saw it through to execution, "better".

Power cut = no e-ink update = problems. People are stupid.