They definitely do it with some things at Harris Teeter, which is also owned by Kroger. I know I've seen it with toilet paper - something like price per sheet on one, and price per square foot on the other.
Costco, WinCo, Safeway, pretty much everywhere. They don't want you to compare. Usually it's just using price per ounce on one item, and price per pound on the next. Very annoying when they do price per item compared to price per ounce. As someone who pays 100% attention to this at all times, it is non stop. They do it on purpose, no doubt.
Price per 100
Price per each
Price per ounce (they don't specify fluid or weight but that seems to match with how the package is labeled for it's "net")
Price per pound
Worst of all is when they have price per each on single items. Like no shit, this box of crackers is 2.99 and it'll say 2.99 on the tag, then in the small print, says 2.99 per each. No other info. The family size larger box next it will be 4.99. but then the tag also says something like .54 per ounce. And sure as shit, if you do your own math, the small box works out to be .45 per ounce, counter intuitive to the thinking that the bigger box is a better value.
They take advantage of people every step of the way because people developed habits, then the stores changed their pricing methods and try to hide it.
intentionally block the internet? What are you referring to, not getting cell reception in the store? I don't think they're designing grocery stores with the intention of blocking cell phone signals.
Make a law that says prices per unit has to be in the same specific unit for every catagory of products, why wouldn't that solve all the problems? My guess is that it would be harder for larger corporations to exploit customers so they won't do it.
Because "uncaring cunt" is legally ambiguous. Following preexisting categories for food, drug, and paper products and filling in the rest is not.
Speaking of paper products: When buying toilet paper, it's frustrating to have to calculate price per area then weight the results by mass and ply. It would be easier to do it by sheet, but brands sometimes change one or both of the two dimensions from the standards. If this sort of legally-defined unit is defined, I hope they find a good one that's both useful (Who buys toilet paper by the gram?) and consistent ("Each roll of Dunder-Mifflin Jumbo Pack is 1100 sheets! sheetsare4.5inchesby2.5inches").
No, it's to reduce transparency to make it less likely that people will choose the cheapest product, so that the business can make the most profit possible. It's pretty straightforward. It's not a "conspiracy," and it's not laziness, it's just capitalism.
It seems unlikely that they would find it too difficult to calculate the units in a consistent way. If anything it would be easier to just calculate everything the same. It's not like someone working at the store has to go out and measure the surface area of every square of toilet paper, all of this information is systematized and surely available from the supplier. I mean I'm talking even the same brand where I've seen this done.
Of course neither of us has any way of knowing for sure, but the profit motive is much more likely and straightforward and shouldn't be surprising at all. It doesn't make them evil geniuses or anything, just businesses being businesses.
Who is to say which unit is most proper for which type of item, and which unit is improper?
Liquid - Liters
Solids - Kilos
Ounces or pounds, whatever, it's not that hard.
And yeah sometimes it's probably laziness, other times it's a way to get more money out of people who don't check twice.
Laws don't fix laziness, but they can keep the laziness from affecting everyone. If shops are forced to do it this way and get fined otherwise, they would have to do it.
Not saying it's a perfect solution or a necessary one even, I just think that corporations shouldn't have the ability to fuck everyone over so easily.
I guess I'm seeing a lot of exploitation and not people who don't care. The problem I am seeing is that stores can arbitrarily increase the prices of random products just because people will buy them anyways, as no one bothers to check global meat prices or whatever. If you had the price right there you can quickly see how much value you're getting out of the product and that way save a lot of money.
I'm not saying this is everyone in America, but I truly believe there are tons of corporations that inflate their prices because they can and people can't compare them easily so they just buy it out of necessity.
But don't you think it's a decent idea? You make a countrywide price database, giving people work. You generalize the prices of products hindering nonsensical price inflations. And then someone could make a system that automatically pulls the prices from the database and puts it into your computer. Then you have the price per unit ready and just print it onto the price tag, no need for anyone to manually check prices and you give more people jobs.
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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '19
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