Large Economy Size Rip Off

I'm an old man. A grandpa you can say. Nice Intro eh. Well my story goes like this, I was grocery shopping with Mrs. `Gramps` at Publix the other day. (I'm retired, I can do that.) We needed peanut butter, so I went over to that section to get a jar. They had two sizes: a 10 ouncer for $1.50 and a 20 ouncer for $2.75. It seemed intuitively obvious to me that the larger size was the better value. I could purchase 20 ounces by buying the large jar for 2.75 or buy two 10 ounce jars for 3.00. A no brainer.

And if I couldn't figure it out that way, I could look at the shelf label. It told me that the smaller jar was costing me 15 cents per ounce, while the larger jar was only costing 13.75 cents per ounce. The large jar was the better value.

The government has mandated that these shelf labels and price information be in place. And while it was easy to determine the better value with my first example, I would have had to do much more arithmetic if the smaller jar was 9 ounces for 1.35 and the large jar was 14 ounces for 1.93 Not so obvious there, so the shelf lable is a big help.

The 'large economy size' has been around for a while. Manufacturers can produce the larger size at a savings, and they pass part of the savings on to the retailer, who then passes part of the savings on to the consumer. A win, win, win situation.

People have been buying the large economy size for decades. We've been doing it for so long that we just automatically reach for the larger size because we know it's the better value.

Except in Wal-Mart.

In Wal-Mart, the small size peanut butter is 14 cents per ounce, and the large size is 14.7 cents per ounce. The small jar is the better value. And Mrs. `Gramps` automatically took the large jar until I pointed out the gouging she was getting.

Peanut butter isn't the only example. I went for a tube of lip balm. A one tube blister pack cost 97 cents. The three tube blister pack cost $2.91. That's exactly 97 cents times 3. Which means that Wal-Mart is making out again.

Now you might wonder why Wal-Mart does this. It's because we've been trained to buy the larger size, and they make more money on the larger size. Think of this: with their size, one million people shop their stores each day. If they can get and additional one cent profit from each of those people each day, that adds up to a lot of money.

So the next time you're in Wal-Mart, and you go for that big box of detergent, get down on you hands and knees and read the shelf label. You just might find that the better value is the smaller size bottle or box. But you'll never know unless you look.

But if you think Wal-Mart is sticking it to you, think about the brand of towels that offers smaller sheets. They are 55% of the size of a full sheet. Normally, you need a full sheet to dry your hands, so you are actually using 110% of a full sheet each time you use the towels. Costs the same, but you use it up faster. Clever marketing, huh?

So what does this have to do with a confession? Well I confess I'm pretty pissed off. Owh, and the next time you are shopping at Wal-Mart and you see somebody on their hands and knees in front of the detergent section, you can almost be guaranteed that they read this item. Say hello to them.


Submitted by 'Mr. Gramps'