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Shrinkflation - examples?

LSWR Cavalier

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I remember as a child being fascinated by the text on breakfast cereal packets: 'This package is sold by weight not volume, the contents may settle'. Likewise for yoghurt, without a bit of space at the top it would be messy to eat on a moving train.

As for alleged drained weights for canned fish, has anyone weighed the contents to check if the weight shown is correct?
 
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pdeaves

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As for alleged drained weights for canned fish, has anyone weighed the contents to check if the weight shown is correct?
I expect so. I remember reading once of someone moaning about there being fewer baked beans in a particular brand can. They literally counted them and had so many per meal.
 

gg1

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Quite possibly the sneakiest most underhand example is the Terry's Chocolate Orange.

The pack is the same size, the orange itself is the same size, but each individual segment now has an large indentation on one side thereby reducing the amount of chocolate you get for your money.
 

Mcr Warrior

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Another one noticed today. A well known brand of hair shampoo. Was £1.00 for 250ml, now it's £1.00 for just 200ml. Reckon that's a 25% increase. :(
 

SteveM70

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I noticed yesterday that the bags of coffee beans I buy have at some point in the last year or two changed from 227g (or half a pound in old money) to 200g.

So not all of my massively increased number of purchases is down to working from home!
 

gg1

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It's what happens if you overdo it.

Images of Germans taking wheelbarrows full of Deutschmarks to buy a loaf of bread come to mind.
In the interests of pedantry, they were called Reichsmarks at the time, Deutschmarks were the post war (West) German currency.

 

Mcr Warrior

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Isn't that Quantative Easing?
Ultimately, perhaps, but initially QE might just involve the lowering of interest rates and the buying back of government bonds in the marketplace (which increases the price of the bond but depresses the effective % return on them).

QE doesn't necessarily result in any additional bank notes being printed.

Theory is that it will then be cheaper for folk to borrow money, and so more will be spent to boost the economy.

Not quite sure though how a Bank of England base rate of 0.1% p.a. equates with high street banks charging 39.9% p.a. for personal overdrafts. o_O
 

Steddenm

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I know that poundshops etc sell items for £1 with smaller pack sizes, but, if you look it's actually the same price per individual item in the pack.

Eg:
Walkers Cheese & Onion Crisps
£1 for 4 packs, Poundland
£1.50 for 6 packs, Tesco
(25p per pack)

Coca Cola 1l Bottle
£1 Poundland
£1.50 Co-OP
(10p/100ml)

Radox Bath Revive Foam
£1 Poundland 500ml
£2 Savers 1l
(10p/100g)

Princes Tuna Chunks in Brine
£4 for 4 Poundland
£5 for 5 Waitrose
£1 each can
 

Peter Mugridge

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I know that poundshops etc sell items for £1 with smaller pack sizes, but, if you look it's actually the same price per individual item in the pack.

Eg:
Walkers Cheese & Onion Crisps
£1 for 4 packs, Poundland
£1.50 for 6 packs, Tesco
(25p per pack)
I'm fairly sure I've been paying £1.25 for a packet of 6 at Tesco - unless that's one of the Clubcard discount prices?
 

Steddenm

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Currently £1.50 online.

Screenshot_20210725-000117_Chrome.jpg

Some products are actually bigger in the poundshops.

At OneBelow a 9 pack Mars Bar multi pack is £1, whilst next door in Sainsbury's a four pack is £1. The 9 pack is £2.50!
 
Last edited:

61653 HTAFC

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Currently £1.50 online.

View attachment 100216

Some products are actually bigger in the poundshops.

At OneBelow a 9 pack Mars Bar multi pack is £1, whilst next door in Sainsbury's a four pack is £1. The 9 pack is £2.50!
But are the Mars bars in the 9-pack the same size as the ones in the 4-pack? If they're similar to Boosts or Toffee Crisps (admittedly those are from different manufacturers) the 4-packs are a similar size to the ones sold individually, with the bars sold in 9s being significantly smaller.

I have noticed that sometimes the 4s are on special offer, at other times the 9s... but never both at the same time!
 

Springs Branch

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Craft beers are a big thing in Australia these days. Until this trend took off, the standard size bottle or can for mainstream beers was 375ml (nobody drinks Fosters Lager in Aus, let alone those big cans of the stuff)

When the first new craft beers appeared, they mostly seemed to come in 355ml bottles or cans.

As the market has grown, the most recent newcomer brews are all in 330ml containers.

Plus the traditional 6-pack has decreased to 4 bottles or (more likely) cans for craft beers.

You can easily pay at least the same price for 4x330ml as you used to pay for 6x375ml - a factor of x1.7 per British Standard Mouthful.
(Admittedly mass-market beers have kept their "legacy" products to 6x375ml packs - and, usually, the craft beers are a tastier drop than Aussie lager so worth some sort of premium)
 

Dai Corner

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Princes Tuna Chunks in Brine
£4 for 4 Poundland
£5 for 5 Waitrose
£1 each can
Who'd have thought Poundland charge Waitrose prices? Not their customers, I'm sure.

Of course the business model of this kind of shop is to give the imprsssion that they're cheap even when they're not.
 

Butts

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I know that poundshops etc sell items for £1 with smaller pack sizes, but, if you look it's actually the same price per individual item in the pack.

Eg:
Walkers Cheese & Onion Crisps
£1 for 4 packs, Poundland
£1.50 for 6 packs, Tesco
(25p per pack)

Coca Cola 1l Bottle
£1 Poundland
£1.50 Co-OP
(10p/100ml)

Radox Bath Revive Foam
£1 Poundland 500ml
£2 Savers 1l
(10p/100g)

Princes Tuna Chunks in Brine
£4 for 4 Poundland
£5 for 5 Waitrose
£1 each can

Poundland used to sell 6 Packs for a Pound then it went down to 5 and now 4.

Indeed they used to sell 7 Packs of Smiths Crisps for a £1 - not sure if they still do.

I wonder if there is anything they sell that is still the same size and price (£1) as when they started out 20 odd years ago.
 

CrispyUK

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there was one prime example of shrinkflation that I experienced some years ago, and that was my local dairy's introduction of 500ml bottles of milk.
I found the same with buying milk from One Stop and similar places, you think you are paying the same price as the supermarkets, but the smaller shops actually sell a 2 litre bottle of milk, rather than 4 pints. The bottles look and feel similar unless you have them side by side, but 2 litres is only 3.5 pints.
 

Mcr Warrior

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I found the same with buying milk from One Stop and similar places, you think you are paying the same price as the supermarkets, but the smaller shops actually sell a 2 litre bottle of milk, rather than 4 pints. The bottles look and feel similar unless you have them side by side, but 2 litres is only 3.5 pints.
That's particularly annoying as 'One Stop' are a wholly owned subsidiary of Tesco plc, but don't normally advertise themselves as such.
 

LSWR Cavalier

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I buy a lot of healthy food, porridge oats, vegetables, how do the shops secretly up the prices of goods sold by weight?
..
Not noticed any changes in gas prices, I always fill up my tank for $ 50 exactly.
 

Dai Corner

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I buy a lot of healthy food, porridge oats, vegetables, how do the shops secretly up the prices of goods sold by weight?
..
Not noticed any changes in gas prices, I always fill up my tank for $ 50 exactly.
Possibly by reducing the quality or freshness of the products?

I presume you're not in the UK if you buy your gas in $, so I can't comment on the prices where you are but here they vary considerably above the effective minimum set by the fuel duty element.
 

Mcr Warrior

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I buy a lot of healthy food, porridge oats, vegetables, how do the shops secretly up the prices of goods sold by weight?
For packaged goods, by reducing the pack size, say from 1 lb (454 g) to 12 ozs (340 g), but keeping the price the same.

Be difficult with loose goods, obviously.

Not noticed any changes in gas prices, I always fill up my tank for $ 50 exactly.

If by 'gas' you are referring to gasolene (or petrol as it is more commonly known here in the UK), prices have been edging up by about £0.01 (a penny) per litre per week of recent.

Not really an example of 'shrinkflation', more of inflation generally, which as regards petrol has been caused by a number of factors including higher crude oil prices, higher demand generally (at the height of the first COVID-19 lockdown, not so many folk were driving anywhere, so reduced demand for the stuff) , USD-GBP currency movements, and quite possibly opportunistic price increases passed on by fuel retailers.

So, if you put £50 of petrol in your road vehicle of choice here in the UK, it might well no longer fill the fuel tank!
 

Mojo

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I see "pound" or "99p" shops differently to the main supermarkets etc.

Here indeed their only option is reducing the quantity i.e. pack weight or number of items packed together.

I've not looked since things I do not buy but I recall back in time the weight of items in multipacks e.g. crisps would be less than from the supermarket chains.
Some of the Poundshops have some pretty funky sizes too, that I’ve never seen anywhere else. Bags of sugar that weighs 1.65kg for example. Obviously a bit of a difficult one for them to work out, as normal supermarkets sell sugar at 65p for a 1kg bag, but in many larger shops you can also get 2kg bags for £1.25. (B&M sells it for 59p a bag).

With the growth of bargain shops, it’s not a surprise really that Poundland have evolved into a mixed price retailer, although the majority of stuff is still £1. Chris Edwards who founded Poundworld, and later sold it, said that it was probably the fact that the new owners dropped the flat price that caused the issues. He then started a new chain, Onebelow, which is still going although still relatively small. There’s also the London chain Sam99p which has recently rebranded to SamPoundstores. Not sure if there’s any other real fixed price stores out there.
 

Mcr Warrior

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Some of the Poundshops have some pretty funky sizes too, that I’ve never seen anywhere else. Bags of sugar that weighs 1.65kg for example.
Almost certainly produced in special pack sizes by the manufacturers so that the "discount" retailers can then sell the stuff at the given price point, say 99p or £1, and both still make a profit.

Will tend to catch out the unwary who may not realise that the pack sizes are smaller than is usual elsewhere.
 

Busaholic

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Poundland used to sell 6 Packs for a Pound then it went down to 5 and now 4.

Indeed they used to sell 7 Packs of Smiths Crisps for a £1 - not sure if they still do.

I wonder if there is anything they sell that is still the same size and price (£1) as when they started out 20 odd years ago.
Even the shoplifters are deserting our Poundland - hear them grumbling on the nearby benches about the poor value. Devon and Cornwall police have just released a video shot in Poundland, St Austell showing a guy (a policeman actor?) being (pretend?) shot with a taser: all very bizarre.
 

LSWR Cavalier

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Lit a candle in church with a match, the box allegedly contained 38 matches. Worth counting if one buys a new box?

To adjust the price, the number of matches in a box can simply be reduced, were there 50 in a box once? Matches could be smaller too, saves a few micro-pennies.
 

Dai Corner

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Lit a candle in church with a match, the box allegedly contained 38 matches. Worth counting if one buys a new box?

To adjust the price, the number of matches in a box can simply be reduced, were there 50 in a box once? Matches could be smaller too, saves a few micro-pennies.
That brings to mind the days when cigarettes were sold from machines. Instead of changing the coin mechanism the number in a packet was varied.
 

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