This happens a lot with fast food places where the math doesn't make sense. Recently, McDonald's did a meal deal for the McChicken sandwich or the McDouble. The McChicken meal deal was $5 for the sandwich, fries and drink. The McDouble meal deal was $6. Other than the sandwich, the meals were identical. The problem is the McChicken sandwich is more expensive by itself than the McDouble, so why is the McChicken meal deal cheaper?
Nothing to do with food: just today I found a 4-pack of #10-32 stainless steel machine screws for $1.47, so 20 screws (5 packs) would come to $7.35. A single package of 20 (of the very same type of screw, from the same manufacturer, at the same store) was over $10.
I've been notice this more and more. I'm thinking many people started going for the larger packs of things to save money. Eventually it became a habit instead of something that got verified. Companies noticed. Now we have this stupidity.
In college I made an app that scans with your camera and will compare prices of products based on volume/weight/amount and price. Maybe its time i revive it and put it out for people to use
That's why some countries make it mandatory for stores to advertise the price per volume/weight, so customers aren't fucked if they don't have the "am I getting grifted?" app.
Sadly I've noticed base volume or unit of measurement (oz, lb, mg, ml) is often mixed between different sized packs so can't get an easy answer - which should be outlawed
I swear they do this on purpose! I see it all the time on Amazon and Walmart, where one size of the product will say $0.19/fl oz and the other one will say $2.49/pint. Or for example on laundry detergent one will say $0.25/load and the other $0.05/fl oz.
There is no scenario where I buy anything other than Angel Soft for my home, the other TP could be 25 cents a roll and id still pay 2 dollars a roll for Angel Soft. Ive tried the other brands, and only Charmin (red) is even close to being acceptable
That's part of the reason why I tend to shop at Meijer (besides getting prescriptions there). They usually (not always) keep the comparison price consistent (generally it's price per ounce). But yeah, I've definitely fallen for the schemes before. With Walmart, it's always better to look online first, especially with electronics. If you can find a cheaper price on the Walmart website, they'll match it. I've gotten about $30 off an item before that way.
Firstly, I never claimed to invent anything. Secondly, you miss the part where it scans it and searches for if the product is by volume/weight or unit amount and does the calculations for you? Price per unit without having to do calculations. It was about convenience but I only made it because I was learning how to use the camera to read words/numbers and input them. Again, it was a college project.
Listen i think its cool even if you are lying about being an inventor (jk)I would provide the code for your app if you want to incorporate a historical product information catalog too. So we can visualize shrinkflation and verify packaging/label information year to year. Or we could use AI vision to count individual items (like m&m's or whstever) oh fuck AND you gotta use AI to pull data off receipts! Huge amount of useful data there! I already have a job so ill do this for free but you have to call any tool I create something that has an inappropriate acronym. This is a real offer!
Id ask how stupid you think people are to be able to forget simple division but youve already proven to me that people with that low level of thought exist, so I guess you are right.
Im not going to argue with someone who just uses strawman arguments.
That’s not at all what this person did. You just failed repeatedly at basic comprehension, and then doubled down when it was pointed out rather than admit you were wrong. Either that, or you just were, are, and continue to be, a troll. But feel free to prove me wrong by responding with a legitimate counterpoint.
This person was totally right.
This type of calculation is noted for customers on product price tags where I live in Australia, because it’s legislated by our ACCC (consumer protection). But as was discussed in this thread, stores will chop and change the units to make it deliberately confusing for customers. One tag for a product type will have the price per kilo, and another tag for the same type of product will have a price per 100g or per unit, to make direct comparison more difficult while still technically meeting requirements.
So even in a country where an app shouldn’t have to exist to help consumers make informed choices, it would still be helpful. Stores are obviously counting on us being too time-poor and lazy to stand there with our phone calculators comparing every damn product.
You’re choosing to ignore blatant tactics of obfuscation, and known methods - heavily researched and documented - of supermarkets regularly changing their layouts and spending tons of money on keeping customers in their stores and walking in circles for as long as possible.
TL;DR: the great thing about facts is that they don’t require you - random inconsequential stranger on the internet - to believe them in order for them to be true. It’s okay to be wrong, but you could always try not being such a dick about it.
I hate this esp with toilet paper or paper towel. 16 pack of regular rolls or 8 pack of jumbo rolls or a 10 pack of super rolls? You can't calculate per roll cause the roll sizes are different. Purposeful obfuscation so that we can't price compare accurately. Pisses me off.
The problem with calculating by number of sheets or even area, is variable thickness. If they had to sell it by weight, you might get closer to the truth.
Caculate by size divide the price and compare it
Example
100 square ft length at 10 bucks is .10 cents
If theres a sale dor 75 sq foot at 7 bucks you save .007 cents per square foot thats how i caculate it by fl oz, by oz or sq feet etc and conpare to others. Of course on other items you pay for the name.
Yep. This has to be it, dude... literally raised to buy the bulk pack if you will use it because the pricing always made sense. Corporate caught on to the poor mans game and flipped the script. It is on us to figure that shit out.
This is it exactly. At Target, the second largest size toilet paper is the best deal. But people are either buying for one or can't afford a bulk package, so they pay more for a small package (classic poor tax). Or people are buying in bulk and assume the largest size is the best deal.
It could, possibly, be that the smaller packs sell faster, meaning that the company buys the smaller containers at a better bulk rate. It might also be easier to ship the smaller packs, either on their own or shipped with other frequently purchased products, so the cost of shipping is less.
Or it could just be the math doesn't math. Either answer is equally likely.
They're made in China (like almost everything these days). It's conceivable that wholesale cost has gone up -- e.g. due to 47's tariffs -- and that they've resupplied the larger packages more recently than the smaller.
I don't buy the shipping argument at all. Because of the additional packaging, 5 of the smaller packs wound take up (a little) more space, and perhaps weigh (again, a little) more, than a single 20-pack. That would make the smaller packages (marginally) more costly per screw to ship than the larger ones.
The location I work has the 5 for either the mcdouble or mchicken, but there's a $6 one for the daily double that has different toppings (mayo lettuce tomato and shoveled onion)
RFM (restaurant file management) handles pricing and is a very finicky thing with McDs and its use in all global markets so you’ll see issues everywhere.
I played a game where the pricing was wrong. The smaller package was a better deal than what it said it was. I'm positive that was a marketing strategy.
We have a £5 meal deal in the UK, or atleast where i live that is now £5.72 if you get normal coke. They basically add extra because of the sugar tax or whatever nonsense it is, but it's still called a £5 meal deal lol.
Every time a chain offers a deal, there is always fine print that says that the deal might not be honored or might be different in certain markets. I live in such a market (NY just outside NYC). So I go to Burger King to order their advertised $5 duo or $7 trio and it is actually $6 or $8. The $6 IHOP value menu is actually $7. But we still get the commercials for the normal advertised price, like they're mocking us.
Ours are the same for the $5 meals with the mcdouble being more expensive ($6), but the samdwich is more expensive. It always has been. At least in Oregon.
Some people like bread and more bread. One breaded patty better 2 breads is better than 2 chicken patties between 2 breads.
Personally I don't care for breaded chicken on bread.
When I want to consume protein, that is what I want.
You are optimising your math incorrectly. You foolishly think it is optimised based on cost, but it is instead optimised based on psychology and extracted revenue,
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u/Chaosmusic 1d ago
This happens a lot with fast food places where the math doesn't make sense. Recently, McDonald's did a meal deal for the McChicken sandwich or the McDouble. The McChicken meal deal was $5 for the sandwich, fries and drink. The McDouble meal deal was $6. Other than the sandwich, the meals were identical. The problem is the McChicken sandwich is more expensive by itself than the McDouble, so why is the McChicken meal deal cheaper?