Notice this with app food delivery as well. Smaller portions than in restaurant, for the same order on delivery, with higher charge due to app fees
Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
451–460 of 535 posts
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#452Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah Safeway typically shows price per unit, but Trader Joe’s (which is often thought of as a ‘friendly’ grocery) never does. I wish they did!
TJs only has one version of each item so I suppose it’s not super valuable to do that.
One breakfast cereal, one type of apples? Doesn't sound like a good place to shop.
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#453Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah Safeway typically shows price per unit, but Trader Joe’s (which is often thought of as a ‘friendly’ grocery) never does. I wish they did!
Surely coincidence rather than collusion (ahem*), manufacturers sharing the same competitive shelf space mysteriously all prefer different units. * see tacit collusion : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion
thank you for this term. I’ve been struggling lately with this topic because collusion has some fairly well defined regulatory meaning, and I’ve had to quote the term collusion to avoid some argumentative pushback. I think the rise of computation and networking has allowed for collusion at levels that were impossible 30 years ago. The biggest example of algorithmic collusion brought to my attention in the last few years is a SaaS that many landlord use that all but tells them to raise rents to bring them up to “market rates”. And I’m sure this kind of thing is becoming super prevalent in all kinds of places.
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#454Why does shrinkflation exist? Are people really fooled by smaller sodas? I think that anyone who believes that doesn't actually drink soda. Anyway, that leads me to believe that there must be some other factor, like maybe some law or contract prevents them from raising prices. Or maybe supermarket shelf space cost is tied to price somehow. Makes you think.
Customers are absolutely fooled by smaller sizes. I've almost fallen for it myself when a coffee package was reduced from 500g to 450. Thankfully I noticed the price per kg was off, but without it I wouldn't have noticed.
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#455Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you suggesting that people will simply buy more units, at a higher total price? That would be a novel result in economic history. Local taxes on soda in American cities have demonstrably lowered sales of those drinks, in those jurisdictions. Buyers are sensitive to price. In fact, demand for sugary drinks is highly elastic. A tax of just 1¢/oz in Oakland caused a 27% decline in sales, without countervailing incre…
Lmao it’s Oakland. In many cases you can just walk a block to the next city. That doesn’t actually prove anything.
> Lmao it’s Oakland. In many cases you can just walk a block to the next city. That doesn’t actually prove anything.
From the PLOS article: "There were no detectable changes in purchases of untaxed beverages or sweet snacks or purchases in border areas surrounding cities."
From the post you replied to: "without countervailing increases of sales in neighboring markets without the tax."
Why do you even bother replying?
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#456While the trend they're highlighting is absolutely real, it looks like the math in their first example isn't quite right: > For example, Carrefour said a bottle of sugar-free peach-flavored Lipton Ice Tea, produced by PepsiCo, shrank to 1.25 liters (0.33 gallons) from 1.5 liters (0.3 gallons), resulting in a 40% effective increase in the price per liter. Assuming the price per unit stayed the same (which is the impli…
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Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you shop often enough, you do start to remember it. I buy a lot of groceries every week and would absolutely notice if things got smaller or the unit price got larger.
they never reduce it enough for you to notice (unless you're explicitly checking the weight each time)
Then the unit price changes.
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#458Earlier quoted context omitted.
no-one commits the price for litre/kg to memory
This is a super privileged opinion and wildly out of touch with the less fortunate classes of society. Also, if you don’t commit to price comparison, how can "shrinkflation" be a problem? If you can buy whatever groceries you want anyway, just buy the ones that make you feel comfortable regarding their price policy...?
> This is a super privileged opinion and wildly out of touch with the less fortunate classes of society.
That's clear bait. What you're advocating for is a mental tax on the "less fortunate class" as you put it.
Make price transparency legally required and see how the game changes.
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#459While the trend they're highlighting is absolutely real, it looks like the math in their first example isn't quite right: > For example, Carrefour said a bottle of sugar-free peach-flavored Lipton Ice Tea, produced by PepsiCo, shrank to 1.25 liters (0.33 gallons) from 1.5 liters (0.3 gallons), resulting in a 40% effective increase in the price per liter. Assuming the price per unit stayed the same (which is the impli…
I was able to find the details (source in French: https://photo.capital.fr/shrinkflation-voici-la-liste-des-pr...)
In addition to the volume reduction, the price also went up from 1.45€ to 1.63€.
So the price per litre went from 0.97€/L to 1.36€/L. Much closer to the 40% figure.
Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
#460Earlier quoted context omitted.
they never reduce it enough for you to notice (unless you're explicitly checking the weight each time)
Then the unit price changes.
which changes all the time with regular price fluctations/discounts/etc
I have noticed e.g. with toilet roll when they decrease the weight they bundle it with a temporary discount so that the unit price remains the same (or even decreases for a bit)
then once the discount ends you've forgotten that they decreased the weight
it's a random walk, with the shrinkflation causing it to go upwards over time
it's the same trick e.g. Google does with Google Workspace, when they want to increase the price they:
- increase regular price, but introduce a new permanent "12 month plan" with the previous price
- six months down the line the 12 month plan is discontinued