Usually shrinkflation is more subtle, eg the same size bottle has a spacer on the bottom so it's the same size as the 1l bottle but only holds 900ml. No way to buy 1l at that point, and most people don't memorize the unit prices

This. I witnessed it today. I was running out of washing powder, still keeping the old box (6.5 kg, promotional price 25.95 chf sticker). Went to COOP (CH retailer), again "promotion" of Ariel, same price, but the box is now 4.8 kg.

I don't think that's how liquids are legally able to be marketed, at least in any country I'm aware of. A volume measurement on a bottle/can/etc of liquid — whether a drink, a medicine, windshield-wiper fluid, etc — should always be the volume of liquid you get by pouring the container's contents out into a measuring vessel. No real possibility of / benefit to using slack-fill. If they change the shape of a liquid container, it's for logistics reasons (better packing, less likely to puncture/explode, etc.)

Manufacturers can label it as 900 milliliters so they're not lying, but the bottle looks like it's a liter bottle so the customer doesn't really check the listed amount. They should check though, is my point.

I wish changes like this would also trigger a change in the barcode, that fundamentally by law a new unit size of the same product would be given a new number and that number would be on the receipt. If the number was tokenized like a VIN with sub strings representing volume that could be another way to catch this where the information is tied to data text rather than the physical product whose visuals can deceive when in a rushed shopping event.

Are people really going to OCR their receipts for years, hoping to catch an instance of "shrinkflation"?

Probably not but it would enable that sort of analysis should anyone find a way to easily automate that process someday. It’s one mechanism for feedback that probably not everyone has to do but a few could and their efforts would benefit the wider consumer base I’d imagine. If someone posted that raw data and analysis publicly that would be a website I’d visit from time to time.

Consider the burden of tracking unit prices a tax itself that is being shifted to the buyer in this case. So even then… inflation.

Seriously. Here is a thread of a person tracking the changes of supermarket prices in Austria: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@badlogic/111071396799790275

Building a food price database is not something that one could easily do from the looks of it.

Then you’re just tracking the real inflation of the product. Most consumers don’t go through the trouble of looking or remembering what the past unit prices are, so there’s consumer protection advocacy to protect and inform the typical consumer of the downsides of current offerings.

Rules and regulations should make it easier and always blaming the user is how you get into this type of mess.

See the greatly successful nutrition info block on everything in the US.

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.

This, the concern trolling of corporate apologia is becoming absurd.

“Don’t patronize poor people, of course they are smart enough to remember the ever shifting prices and unit sizes of every product in the marketplace to calculate the real price changes in the goods they are buying.

> This is a super privileged opinion and wildly out of touch with the less fortunate classes of society.

I roughly remember the sku price, I will notice if the milk goes up 15c

but I am not going to remember that last week it was 490g if they silently reduce it to 480g

this is why they do it... because it works

> Also, if you don’t commit to price comparison

I do price comparison at the point of purchase

but I don't remember the price/ml week to week

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.

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

then they repeat next time they want to increase the price

In this country, equivalent products on the shelf alternate between listing a price per oz, and a price per lb, to make it more difficult to compare the two.

Its also in tiny 8 point font.

Try buying a half gallon of ice cream or a proper sized roll of toilet paper. Corporate greed, especially that is intended to cheat the consumer invisibly, always deserves to be called out.

>Try buying a half gallon of ice cream

Why do you need half gallon specifically? Is there something about the half gallon form factor that other sizes doesn't satisfy?

Why wouldn't I be able to buy a half gallon? I'd just buy multiple pints until I get to my desired amount.

Yes it matters.

Box of crackers. Was 450g weight. Now same size box has 400g. Price is same.

People buy by the package, not the quantity in the package.

Exactly, there’s a muscle memory and a tangible quantity a package often implies. When the packaging mismatches the quantity it is misleading essentially and wasteful of resources at that point. Think about the shipping angle where packaging is wasted at that point—-basically a smaller package could be used and still allow the transport of the product.

They don't let you buy 1/3rd of a bottle :(

A small bottle or can are usually 330mL (though I think 250 also exists?) so technically they do. It’s usually going to be more expensive per unit tho.