Shrinkflation: Costco Paper Towels, Now with 20 Fewer Sheets per Roll (2012)

[grawprog]

I remember learning about this concept first hand years ago working in a grocery store. I was in charge of stocking the freezer at the time. We had a sale on for breyer's ice cream. the 500ml tubs. they used to come in packs of 5 on the pallet. Then one day they dropped the size to 473ml and started shipping 4 in a pack for the same price. I remember this vividly because i had to completely rearrange the shelves so the new containers fit properly.

Also, somewhat related, the same year dairyland stopped putting handles on their 4 litre ice cream pails. The little old ladies freaked out. Turns out, nobody likes the ice cream, they just wanted the bucket with the handle. I remember asking the dairyland driver why they took the handles off. He said someone figured out the company would save 1¢ per bucket if they removed the handles saving them over a million dollars a year or something. I still wonder whether the drop in sales from people annoyed at the loss of the handle countered the savings of removing the handle.

[downrightmike]

"I don't like the ice cream, I just want a bucket" -proceeds to shovel a whole bucket of ice cream into their face.

[vitus]

I'm not sure I understand the math in the thread that arrives at 8.75% inflation (or 8.75% off).

160 / 140 yields 14% increase in price per unit, and (1 - 140 / 160) yields a discount of 12.5%.

But also, this isn't necessarily an indicator of inflation simply due to debt financing / monetary policy -- recall that in the early days of the pandemic, there were severe shortages of paper and cleaning products (TP anyone?). If inflation were in fact in the double digits, I'd expect to see it across the board (e.g. in the price of eggs / milk which you can't play as many games with).

[davrosthedalek]

People very often fail to translate a fraction like 0.875 into a percentage. It's really obvious when people try to calc death rates from covid. Say 1 in 1000 is then suddenly 0.001% instead of 0.1%

[Arete314159]

Houses in my city have gone up 10% since Jan. 1st. Rent is up in my complex about 10% since last year. And Procter & Gamble have already announced price hikes to come in the fall. Not to mention lumber up, what, 3x or something now?

[mythrwy]

I was at the store today looking at packages and picking them up to see weight. Most of them could have held much more product.

I felt like (in some cases at least) it was deceptive implying the quantity of product was larger. The deception is a bit of a problem but the larger problem is "do we need that much wasteful packaging?". It's really environmentally unfriendly between useless production and disposal.

I personally don't care for bulk bins and cloth shopping bags, but this is a bit out of control.

Look at how much stuff you throw away each week. Maybe we could tax packaging somehow and make it more efficient?

[loonster]

Just require everything to be sold using a preferred number for volume/mass. Some countries have these laws already.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_number

[greedo]

I also notice how traditional grocery stores have embraced some aspects of Costco/Sams warehouse stores by touting larger size bags/boxes of food. For example, at my grocery store, Barilla Spaghetti noodles are $1.28/lb in the 1lb box. But they prominently display a 2lb box for $3.12. Same with Lays Potato Chips, almost 25% more for the same weight when you compare the "Family Size" bag with the next size down.

I think the beancounters have realized we've all been so brainwashed to by huge packages that they've adjusted the pricing to compensate and take away any price savings

[metiscus]

So customers usually cue off of visuals before written text and weight. Companies for this reason and tooling changes being expensive are more prone to shrink contents before raising prices or changing packaging.

[ac29]

The places I usually shop have usually have a price / volume calculation printed, if you find yourself spending too long deciding what to buy like I do.

[marcos100]

In Brazil this is so common that it is mandatory to put in the package the previous amount and how much was reduced with percentage.

[tedeh]

Sounds good, but what about reducing contents by 20 %, then increasing by 5 %?

[frankbreetz]

We would need to look at this overtime. As someone said this is actually equaivent to a 14% price increase. How often does the happen? It might be kind of awkward if they took a fraction of a sheet out each year, and consumers respond to price increases. So they do this every decade with a combination of increasing the size and price you get the extra large size. And of course an increase of price of cherry picked products doesn't mean we are headed for huge hyper inflation. Is this happening for the same reason the price of lumber is increasing? Most examples of inflation people give can be explained by people expecting a collapse in demand when covid hit, but demand actually increased.

[vidanay]

We noticed this last winter. Previously a roll of Costco paper towels didn't fit in our holder until a few layers were used up. Suddenly - a new roll would fit.

[booi]

Reduced quantity as a feature

[wcfields]

I just saw this in real-time this past month with cat food. A 24pk of Rx Renal cat food went from 5.8oz to 5.1oz[1]. I buy two packs at a time and what used to cost $113.76 is now $114.72 Effectively they're charging me an extra buck to keep 33.6oz (5.7 old-cans / 6.5 new-cans) of cat food from me.

[1] https://www.chewy.com/royal-canin-veterinary-diet-renal/dp/2...

[clifdweller]

At least with paper towels the main adjustment is quantity purchased or how often purchased. When ingredients for recipes that come in cans/bottles/jars change very annoying. many recipes from 50s -70s call for 16oz can which has diminishes to 15oz for some products like beans and down to 10.5 oz for campbells soup cans. Chocolate bars from 4 oz ->under 3oz now. Milk may be the last bastion being sold by the gallon unless clever marketers start selling it by the liter.

[tdeck]

Cereal boxes are a great / terrible example of this. Have you ever noticed how many slightly different sizes of Cheerios there are?

In the U.S, you can get an 8.9oz box, a 12oz box, and an 18oz box.

Honey nut Cheerios? Oh, those come in a 10.8oz box, a 15.4oz box, or a 19.5 oz box.

You would be forgiven for thinking these boxes have remained constant over time, or that you could compare boxes between the exact same brand and class of product.

[distances]

Don't you have compulsory labeling for price per kilogram (or the US equivalent)? Of course the effect is still there, but that's the price that generally matters.

[udev]

Did not expect to see RedFlagDeals on Hacker News!

RFD is an amazing (Canadian) forum officially focused on shopping deals, but it is much more than that.

Just like HN, and maybe even more so, RFD has a user base very diverse in its expertise. People help each other make the best choice when making purchases.

As an example of this forum's impact on Canadian economy, consider this mega-thread started in 2006 (15 years ago) and still going strong (3668 pages) where a group mortgage brokers help people get significantly better deals compared to major banks (we are talking savings of $10-15k per 5 years): https://forums.redflagdeals.com/official-mortgage-rates-thre...

There are similar threads about renovating your house, buying a heat-pump, buying an electric car, buying a PS5 without scalpers, etc.

[tedunangst]

So all the years when a roll was 160 sheets at the same price meant no inflation for a decade?

[carlivar]

What is your source that price and quantity were unchanged for a decade?

[jjeaff]

Not sure if that is one of them. But Costco does carry a few loss leaders where they don't raise the price, even though they are no longer profitable. The hotdog and soda deal for $1.50 and the roast chicken for $4.99 are two of them.

[ars]

According to the sign in the store, they also reduced the price.

i.e. the price per sheet is identical to the previous package. But the package is smaller.

[diogenescynic]

Haagen-Diaz ice cream bars got a lot smaller recently too. Same width but not nearly as long. Looks off.

[disgrunt]

dang, this is not from 2012.

[ashtonkem]

I really dislike it when people describe other people they disagree with as “shills”. It turns it from “I disagree with this person” to “this person is implicitly pushing a narrative for nefarious reasons”, which makes the conversation less productive and more toxic.

[ZDurmPhoto]

Inflation is common and normal in a modern economy. This kind of quantity adjustment has been going on for decades. I think you are worried about high inflation and it will be interesting to see what the next few months bring.

But this paper towel example is not outside the bounds of normal inflation.

[imtringued]

The no inflation shills realize when inflation happens and when it doesn't. The inflation shills always say there is high inflation no matter what reality says.

[knolax]

I've never seen anybody argue that inflation doesn't exist.

[Der_Einzige]

Even if we have slightly elevated inflation in the coming few years (e.g. 3-4% YOY instead of 2% or less), it's basically a nothingburger and is healthy for the US economy.