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Shrinkflation Tracker

shrinkflation.io

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Re: Shrinkflation Tracker

#51

Post by adamc »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #49
kepano wrote: post #44

In a high-inflation environment your profits are constantly shrinking. The problem also affects small and independent makers of all kinds. If you are an indie maker and priced your product at $10 in 2020, you're now effectively making $8.38 USD[1]. Assuming inflation will remain elevated and you want to maintain the same margins, you need to either: 1. increase prices 2. reduce quality/quantity/features 3. reduce sup…

this is an accurate description of shrinkflation, though not a good justification of it if companies were honest, they'd put "29% less, but the same price! Inflation, you know?" , and more-informed consumers could make more-informed choices indeed, "Customers are very sensitive to increases in prices" is a nicer way of saying "shrinkflation makes it easier to hide from consumers that they are receiving less value for…

Being honest doesn't pay as well. If it did, they would just raise the price.

They are hoping you don't notice.

Re: Shrinkflation Tracker

#52

Post by kepano »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #49
kepano wrote: post #44

In a high-inflation environment your profits are constantly shrinking. The problem also affects small and independent makers of all kinds. If you are an indie maker and priced your product at $10 in 2020, you're now effectively making $8.38 USD[1]. Assuming inflation will remain elevated and you want to maintain the same margins, you need to either: 1. increase prices 2. reduce quality/quantity/features 3. reduce sup…

this is an accurate description of shrinkflation, though not a good justification of it if companies were honest, they'd put "29% less, but the same price! Inflation, you know?" , and more-informed consumers could make more-informed choices indeed, "Customers are very sensitive to increases in prices" is a nicer way of saying "shrinkflation makes it easier to hide from consumers that they are receiving less value for…

I'm not defending CPG companies. I'm pointing out that if you're an indie maker inflation is a problem you need to contend with in your own pricing. Once you start thinking about it from that perspective, you realize how difficult of a problem it is to solve in a way that feels fair to customers.

In theory software is easier because you could more easily change your pricing every month. With CPG these products sit on store shelves and the manufacturers have less direct control over the pricing.

Re: Shrinkflation Tracker

#54

Post by herpderperator »

boxed wrote: post #20
phailhaus wrote: post #12

Super cool! Very clean, nice font. Some UX things I noticed: 1. In the scrolling feed on the homepage, a 0% change is shown as negative with a red down arrow 2. In the tracker page, 0% is grey (good!) but still with a down arrow, which isn't accurate 3. Might be a good idea to highlight egregious offenders over small decreases. Maybe bold the value if it's greater than 10-15%? 4. Would be cool to be able to sort to s…

I wonder why 0% items are shown on the big list at all. Like having a page of murderers with random innocent people with a text label under "not a murderer" :P

It could be greater than 0% but less than 0.5%, ending up rounded down when displayed. The value getting checked might be against the raw value rather than the rounded one. Which, of course, is a bug.

Re: Shrinkflation Tracker

#55

Post by ShadowBanThis01 »

Love the idea, but how far back do the data go?

And someone pointed out the preponderance of junk food; I want to see core items that are often used in recipes. To me this is the most offensive aspect of these scams: You know your favorite recipe takes four cans of tomatoes, cans that have been the same size for decades. Now... WHOOPS, your meal is messed up because the manufacturer is too gutless to simply raise the price.

The one example I see on the site is butter: https://www.shrinkflation.io/search?query=butter

These jagoffs reduced the quantity by 20%, which is definitely enough to mess up recipes.

Re: Shrinkflation Tracker

#56

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

kepano wrote: post #52
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is an accurate description of shrinkflation, though not a good justification of it if companies were honest, they'd put "29% less, but the same price! Inflation, you know?" , and more-informed consumers could make more-informed choices indeed, "Customers are very sensitive to increases in prices" is a nicer way of saying "shrinkflation makes it easier to hide from consumers that they are receiving less value for…

I'm not defending CPG companies. I'm pointing out that if you're an indie maker inflation is a problem you need to contend with in your own pricing. Once you start thinking about it from that perspective, you realize how difficult of a problem it is to solve in a way that feels fair to customers. In theory software is easier because you could more easily change your pricing every month. With CPG these products sit on…

The issue most people have with shrinkflation isn't that the manufacturers made a tough call when all the options were tough, it's that manufacturers do so in a manner deliberately calculated to hide information from the consumer, and in some cases outright deceive them (if they didn't, this shrinkflation tracker wouldn't exist)

To reiterate, a company honest with consumers would inform them they were getting less for the same price, and try to make the case you're making now: "hey, sorry about this, but times are tough, and we can't raise prices"

Less scrupulous and deceptive companies don't

Re: Shrinkflation Tracker

#58

Post by KomoD »

Koeniggimeno wrote: post #50
not_the_fda wrote: post #31

The idea is nice, but it seems to be tracking junk food, which you probably shouldn't eat and can easily avoid. I'd be more interested in home goods such as soap, detergent; and food staples.

There’s a listing for soap on the front page, I don’t think it’s confined to just junk food

I searched soap and got no result

Re: Shrinkflation Tracker

#59

Post by kepano »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #56
kepano wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not defending CPG companies. I'm pointing out that if you're an indie maker inflation is a problem you need to contend with in your own pricing. Once you start thinking about it from that perspective, you realize how difficult of a problem it is to solve in a way that feels fair to customers. In theory software is easier because you could more easily change your pricing every month. With CPG these products sit on…

The issue most people have with shrinkflation isn't that the manufacturers made a tough call when all the options were tough, it's that manufacturers do so in a manner deliberately calculated to hide information from the consumer, and in some cases outright deceive them (if they didn't, this shrinkflation tracker wouldn't exist) To reiterate, a company honest with consumers would inform them they were getting less fo…

Not sure if this fits under shrinkflation, but the practice of substituting quality ingredients for cheaper ones is even worse IMO. When Nutella did it, it caused a huge kerfuffle, but it's virtually impossible for a consumer to track this across all the products they buy.

An upstream problem is the money printing that causes some of these incentives in the first place.

Re: Shrinkflation Tracker

#60

Post by imglorp »

kepano wrote: post #44

In a high-inflation environment your profits are constantly shrinking. The problem also affects small and independent makers of all kinds. If you are an indie maker and priced your product at $10 in 2020, you're now effectively making $8.38 USD[1]. Assuming inflation will remain elevated and you want to maintain the same margins, you need to either: 1. increase prices 2. reduce quality/quantity/features 3. reduce sup…

There's more malfeasance here.

5. They expansively tier their product line with minor variation to remove the idea of a standard offering. Eg there are some 33 sizes of M&Ms so nobody could say "get me a bag of M&Ms" any more. Forget comparing cell service plans.

    * https://www.measuringhow.com/m-and-m-bag-sizes-guide/
6. They generate different model names for sale at different retailers to obstruct comparison shopping. The TV, appliance, and mattress industries are dirty here.

    * https://www.quora.com/Why-are-model-numbers-for-the-same-appliance-all-different-in-each-store-you-visit?share=1
7. They attempt to detect when comparison shopping is happening and intervene.

    * https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/06/16/amazon-has-a-patent-to-keep-you-from-comparison-shopping-while-youre-in-its-stores/
    * https://www.patriotsoftware.com/blog/accounting/discouraging-price-shopping/
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