Brands know that you don’t like to pay more for things, so they have their tricks to please you in times of inflation. If you have ever bought a chocolate bar or a bag of chips, and it seemed to you that there was less than you remembered, you have probably suffered the effects of reduflation.
The reduflation shrinkflation) is what happens when brands reduce their products in size or quantity to maintain the same prices despite inflation. And sometimes just increase your profits.
In Spain, consumer prices have shot up 7.6% in the last 12 months. America is seeing even higher inflation, and that has reignited a wonderful subreddit in which the cases of reduflation are closely followed.
The costco toilet paper it is tighter than a year ago. The Shreddies cereal box brings 110 grams less cereal. The desodorante de Old Spice it is now smaller, and is sold in packs of two instead of three.
Quartz has investigated the phenomenon further and has come to a conclusion: shoppers tend to be sensitive to price increases, but may not notice subtle changes in packaging or read the fine print regarding size or weight of a product if the price is the same.
The Frito-Lay company, for example, confirmed that bags of Doritos bring fewer nachos due to economic pressures of the pandemic. Would you be able to notice that five potatoes are missing from a bag of potatoes? Probably not.
There are many more cases, because the reduction “tends to occur in waves” in times of higher inflation, he clarifies. consumerworld.org.
The family pack of Nabisco Wheat Thins crackers has shrunk 57 grams, the equivalent of 28 crackers. Crest 3D White Radiant Mint Toothpaste has shrunk eight milliliters, the equivalent of brushing. The 95-cl bottle of Gatorade now contains 83 cl, but costs the same, which is a 14% price increase.
Some companies take products in smaller packages and sell the previous size as a “family pack” or “saver pack”.
In some cases, companies choose to downsize their products and advertise them as new and improved. Bounty Triples toilet paper now has three fewer sheets per roll, but according to Proctor & Gamble, it’s more absorbent, making it difficult to measure the increase in price assumed by the consumer.
Not all product reductions seek to increase profits. Some products they come with less amounts of sugar or calories to comply with the new regulations. But many others are reduced by money.
The law of United States it covers reduflation whenever the empty space of a container has some use. In a bag of chips, the air keeps the chips from breaking. On a bottle of pills, the factory machine you need a free space for you to insert pills.
In any case, companies can always bring out “new products”, changing the quantity and price at will. Consumers, for their part, have the right to change products, looking for alternatives more competitive.
