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Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
121–130 of 535 posts
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Safeway is somewhat insidious with things like this. They'll have a relative price (per pound/oz) for one size of an item, and then for the same item, different size, they'll use a different metric (per packet/slice, etc.) to make them not (easily) directly comparable.
> Safeway is somewhat insidious with things like this. They'll have a relative price (per pound/oz) for one size of an item, and then for the same item, different size, they'll use a different metric (per packet/slice, etc.) to make them not (easily) directly comparable. Unless there is a really strong pattern, I think that might be a situation were you shouldn't assume malice when stupidity will do. I think it's qui…
Most stores in the US do this, and have for decades. It is definitely intentional.
Presumably the people that write the integrations shop in grocery stores, and have noticed the issue.
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#123For those wondering if it's truly representative, it's estimated that 50% of the inflation in Europe is due to margin increase not bc of the inflation itself. https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/06/26/europes-inf...
Supply constraints typically lead to higher prices and higher margins. The fact that the margins have gone up does not somehow imply that the higher prices are something other than inflation.
Why does it cause such higher margins?
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, you can (and should!) check the (mandatory) price/mass or price/volume, but of course there are very smart people being paid a lot to design the packaging so that it's sufficiently compelling for you to still put a higher value on the product...
The price per unit in US groceries is ridiculous. You will literally have 3 packages of soda all of the same size listing the price per unit in completely different units. Some in ml, some in oz, some in pts.
I've made a userscript for this! https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/429539-unit-prices-on-krog...
Kroger doesn't publish unit prices on their websites, but they do publish quantities. They'll sometimes mix the units up (L, floz, see mapUnit() https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/429539-unit-prices-on-krog...), but generally they're OK.
The script will normalize everything to a specific metric unit & present a unit price on the page.
Why stores have this horrible setup? Probably weaponized incompetence. Would be nice to have the FTC step in with some regulation.
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#125Americans will basically put up with a lot, both as workers and as consumers. The French, not so much.
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#126This is such a good idea. I know that everyone in the Western World is told that they eat too much but people need to be able to buy food and eat it. And if the same packaging this week has 90% of what it had last week then then consumers are going to suffer. In the UK many people rely on Food banks and parents skip meals to feed their children. Cutting the amount of food in a package in a manner that is not even vis…
> Corporate profits are high.
Inflation increases profits, too (but not in real dollars).
> This is one of the reasons why.
The reason why is inflation.
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Safeway is somewhat insidious with things like this. They'll have a relative price (per pound/oz) for one size of an item, and then for the same item, different size, they'll use a different metric (per packet/slice, etc.) to make them not (easily) directly comparable.
> Safeway is somewhat insidious with things like this. They'll have a relative price (per pound/oz) for one size of an item, and then for the same item, different size, they'll use a different metric (per packet/slice, etc.) to make them not (easily) directly comparable. Unless there is a really strong pattern, I think that might be a situation were you shouldn't assume malice when stupidity will do. I think it's qui…
These companies negotiate everything, including where the boxes will be located on the shelves, the angles they will be placed at, which competitors will be allowed, the pricing schemes, etc. They will never go “well for the price per unit, let’s just go with whatever random unit our internal systems spit out”.
Its extremely convenient that the mandated data that helps customers cut through the millions they spend on marketing and pricing schemes is the one that is completely uncared for.
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#128This has been going on in Brazil for so long that for two years now companies must, by law, disclose any reduction in weight.
Examples: https://i0.wp.com/sfnoticias.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/...
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#129Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#130Chocolate bars are most notorious for this. Someone needs to do a 10 years ago comparison and there's a massive difference. These days, chocolate bars are all bite sized.
Candy bars is a bit of an “outside this issue”.
Around the world, you’re seeing sugar taxes, pushes for healthier snacks, and general government action against things that are sugar to excess.
Not saying they’re not greedflating like everything else. But they do have significantly different pressures.