Smaller Packaging, Same Price

[damama55]

If you pay in cash, then they round it up or down to the nearest nickle/dollar. However, if you pay by debit, then they don't. Another thing that is funny, is how food stuff is still advertised in pounds or ounces.

[oneh2obabe]

Certain brand of cereal found in stores has downsized their packages big time without increasing the price. It's the cereal that comes in a bag with 5 or 6 varieties offered and is usually priced at $3.00. The one I get occasionally has been downsized from 807g to 503g.

[Catri]

Save-On Foods seems the worst for this. Even the 24 can pack of Coca-Cola only has 20 in it at Pattison's stores. Same price (or more) than the actual 24 pack costs at Safeway or Superstore.

[Even Steven]

We try not to buy packaged food since we try to eat healthy and make everything from scratch.

But the smaller packages and same price phenomena is everywhere - like paper towels, or even household cleaners.

[occasional thoughts]

damama, the system of penny rounding, cash vs. debit/credit, is mandated by the federal government.

As for your other point, one wonders how many generations the retailers will pander to on pounds vs. kilograms, et al, before completely converting to our official weights and measures.

[damama55]

I asked the same question and they said, it is for those tourists who don't understand metrics. Well, how come they don't do the same for speed limit signs?? I guess they just have to go with the flow of traffic, in that case.

[occasional thoughts]

The people running retail stores aren't the people posting speed limit signs, that's for sure.

[Catri]

Even when you're eating healthy, if you buy fresh fish or any deli items at most supermarkets the price is per 100grams instead of per lb or kg, to keep the cost from seeming as astronomical as it actually is. I suspect that will be what dictates when retailers switch completely to metric measurements, when the prices of produce and meat by the pound get so high that people bristle at the cost.

[occasional thoughts]

That could prove to be a piece of brilliant foresight.

[LoneWolf_53]

Even when you're eating healthy, if you buy fresh fish or any deli items at most supermarkets the price is per 100grams instead of per lb or kg, to keep the cost from seeming as astronomical as it actually is. I suspect that will be what dictates when retailers switch completely to metric measurements, when the prices of produce and meat by the pound get so high that people bristle at the cost.

That's true but nothing new really. Big oil was first to play that card, which is why we purchase fuel by the liter as opposed to gallon.

They figure we're too stupid to recognize we're being gouged big time.

[Catri]

Thanks occasional thoughts, it's one of those things I hope I'm wrong about, but really think I'm right.

LW, I've thought that about gas prices too, but I wonder if their switch to metric wasn't mandated by the government. I was pretty young, but it seems to me they switched very soon after metric was adopted and (at least where I lived) gas was still well under a dollar a gallon. The .9 cents/litre that ends every gas price in town, I think is them trying to make us think that we're paying a penny less than we are. Which is dumb, but why else use tenths of a penny in the price?

[oneh2obabe]

Even when you're eating healthy, if you buy fresh fish or any deli items at most supermarkets the price is per 100grams instead of per lb or kg, to keep the cost from seeming as astronomical as it actually is. I suspect that will be what dictates when retailers switch completely to metric measurements, when the prices of produce and meat by the pound get so high that people bristle at the cost.

Easy way to figure out the price ... multiple 100g price x 10 to get price per kilogram. $1.69/100g = $16.90/kg. If you want to know the price per pound, either multiply the price per 100g x 5 or divide the kilogram price in half. Not exact, but close enough.

[damama55]

Catri--As you are probably well aware, stores started charging .99 was because they found people did not want to pay the dollar value, and, they found when they listed something as $1.99, instead of $2, they actually sold more goods. It is a trick that has worked ever sense. Just another way to trick our minds. Well, I guess they win.

[Catri]

Easy way to figure out the price ... multiple 100g price x 10 to get price per kilogram. $1.69/100g = $16.90/kg. If you want to know the price per pound, either multiply the price per 100g x 5 or divide the kilogram price in half. Not exact, but close enough.

It's not so much about the math as it's about the optics. $1.69/100g looks better to a lot of people than $16.90/kg or $7.67/lb.

[occasional thoughts]

And $0.0169/g looks even better. And so on and so on. When will it stop? (I'm sorry, they don't seems to put the cents sign on keyboards anymore.)

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned how our automobile manufacturers now usually advertise leases by the half month or even the week now instead of by monthly..

All these tactics will hit a limit. But, wait, maybe our government will do what others (Mexico? Argentina?) have done and one day knock a zero or two off our currency/prices. As a young coin collector many "centuries" ago I was interested to see that Canada had a half penny coin going into the 1900s.