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Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

theguardian.com

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Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#161

Post by secretsatan »

mortenjorck wrote: post #64

A brand of laundry detergent I use recently decreased the size of its 36oz bottle to 28oz. The kicker, however, is the approximate number of loads listed on the bottle changed from 27… to 28. The instructions on the back now recommend filling the cap to a lower bar for “medium” loads. I’ve been meaning to write to the manufacturer to ask if they’ve quietly changed their formulation to something more concentrated, tho…

I recently discovered detergents and powders regularly overstate how much is required for a wash, and it even leads to worse results, I'm normally sceptical (or just ignorant) of such articles but I halved how much I used and it seemed to be pretty much true for day to day washing (Don't know about massively dirty clothes, but talking weekly wash here)

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/stop-using-so-much-l...

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#162

Post by malfist »

hedora wrote: post #94
BlueTemplar wrote: post #67

Earlier 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...

Expecting people to memorize the per-unit price of everything they buy and compare week to week is unrealistic. Also, at least in the US, the price/weight for the same type of item is often in different units. ($/oz for brand A; $/lb for brand B, etc)

It's even worse when the products you are trying to compare unit prices for when one of them shares a volume unit price and the other a weight unit price and another is in counts.

These things should really be standardized.

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#163

Post by cobbzilla »

thfuran wrote: post #97
rhaway84773 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We don't even have standardization on the nutrition labels. The serving size is different for everything.

I had a bag of salad croutons that measured a serving as “2 Tablespoons” — are they expecting me to crush the croutons to measure a serving? Or just “eyeball” it to convert rectangular things into hemispherical things?

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#164

Post by kvdveer »

hedora wrote: post #94
BlueTemplar wrote: post #67

Earlier 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...

Expecting people to memorize the per-unit price of everything they buy and compare week to week is unrealistic. Also, at least in the US, the price/weight for the same type of item is often in different units. ($/oz for brand A; $/lb for brand B, etc)

Here in the Netherlands, all units are metric (g, ml, g, kg). Liquid products are advertised by volume, but is they're watery (ie. most products), you can just assume litres are kilograms.

Fatty or very sugary liquid products (e.g. cream, syrup) are the only things that can't easily be compared to kg price. I've only seen those advertised by volume, so they can still be compared to their peers.

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#165

Post by gniv »

charles_f wrote: post #8

This is great, shrinkflation is one of these disgusting practices that play on the human psyche to trick people. But also carrefour (and large retailers like them) are notorious for abusing their power when buying, and are a large part of the systemic problem. I don't know how much this is negotiating technique.

I don't know anything about them as a corporate citizen, but out of the (many) supermarket chains here in France I like them the best. They are not the cheapest, but the quality/price ratio is usually correct and the store branded items are very good.

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#166

Post by mannerheim »

effingwewt wrote: post #157
WalterBright wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No, the reason why is price gouging. Or as companies like to call it 'not leaving money on the table'. Prices have outpaced inflation. Everything has, except worker pay and minimum wage. Profits are record-breaking while laying off workers. CEO compensation and bonuses are insane. Housing prices are out of control. Gas is still $5/gallon where I'm at. It all boils down to one word: GREED.

Looks like we're in the 'blaming suppliers for being greedy' stage of inflation. Haven't seen that one before.

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#167

Post by eru »

WalterBright wrote: post #143
eddtests wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it cause such higher margins?

It takes a while for the river of money helicoptered into the economy to spread its inflation out evenly.

That theory only works if people are morons who can't anticipate long expected (price) developments.

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#168

Post by dwighttk »

coldtea wrote: post #141
dwighttk wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kroger/HarrisTeeter too… It is definitely malice because they use every unit imaginable to avoid allowing you to compare within an item type (kg, lbs, oz, g, fl oz, “unit” (where unit = package))

Nothing that a law to stick to single unit can't fix!

Yeah I’m guessing there must be a law about putting the unit prices already or else why would they even have them, so it seems an update might be useful.

I can remember using them like 10 years ago…

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#169

Post by malfist »

secretsatan wrote: post #161
mortenjorck wrote: post #64

A brand of laundry detergent I use recently decreased the size of its 36oz bottle to 28oz. The kicker, however, is the approximate number of loads listed on the bottle changed from 27… to 28. The instructions on the back now recommend filling the cap to a lower bar for “medium” loads. I’ve been meaning to write to the manufacturer to ask if they’ve quietly changed their formulation to something more concentrated, tho…

I recently discovered detergents and powders regularly overstate how much is required for a wash, and it even leads to worse results, I'm normally sceptical (or just ignorant) of such articles but I halved how much I used and it seemed to be pretty much true for day to day washing (Don't know about massively dirty clothes, but talking weekly wash here) https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/stop-using-so-much-l...

I learned this a long time ago when talking with some of my appliance repair friends. Lots of washers break because they're gummed up with excess soap.

I've been running my loads at 1/4 or less of the soap recommended by the manufacturer for years and years and I've never had any issues out of my washer, mechanical or clean wise. Once or twice a year, something will need a second wash or spot treatment, but otherwise everything is pristine.

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#170

Post by true_religion »

vasco wrote: post #131
NickM wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Temporarily and in a localized way, yes. For example, if there's a natural disaster, and the people in power aren't dumb, they'll let prices float instead of putting caps in place, and everyone will be incentivised to rent big trucks full of water bottles and sell it for 20-50x the normal price. For the affected people it makes sense because now they can drink water, and if the prices were controlled nobody would mak…

I guess all people in power must be dumb because every county has laws against grifting necessary essentials in a natural disaster.

It’s possible your point does apply to normal price shifts when supply for something like electronics becomes constrained but right now your example detracts from understanding that.

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