In article >,
"Doug Kanter" > wrote:

> 2) The actual reasons are not known to you or I, but could be if you wrote a
> letter to the company instead of complaining about it in a newsgroup where
> nobody has the ability to give you a definitive answer.

Oh, and how have I "complained" about it? Besides stating that the price
was raised in a manner that would obscure the rise, I made no judgment
about the matter.


> 3) You say I haven't come up with a better explanation, but you have yet to
> comment on any of the well-intended things I've written. Your most
> interesting response has merely been "They do it so they can raise the price
> without appearing to raise the price." You have refused to think about why
> it might have been necessary to raise the price.

Irrelevant. Whatever the reasons they may have had to raise the price,
it was raised. I did not comment on the legitimacy on their reasons; the
comment was on the methodology.


> 4) Besides being well-intended, my comments are based on working for many
> years (and currently) in the wholesale end of the grocery business.
> Therefore, they're far from guesses.

But still inapposite to the aspect I commented upon.


> 5) At least twice, I've reminded others here that the price of milk has gone
> through the roof over the past year or two, and wondered why anyone should
> expect a product that's largely made of milk to remain stable in price.
> Nobody (including you) has acknowledged this fact. How about doing that now?

Still irrelevant. The need for the price to be raised has nothing to do
with shrinking the size of the product to hide the price increase.
Again, I commented on methodology, not basis.


> 6) The tone of this entire discussion suggests that some of the participants
> suspect an evil conspiracy. But, nobody is complaining about the other
> grocery products which have gone through the exact same changes. Why is
> that?

If you look at past discussions in rfc, there have been discussions on
other product shrinkages. Someone had an recent experience with Breyer's
ice cream, so that was topical.


> 7) My neighbor's driveway is the same size as mine. He's very happy with the
> company which completely repaved it 5 years ago, so he gave me a copy of the
> invoice for the work because I need to have mine repaved in the spring. In
> addition to the company he used, I called 3 others for estimates. They were
> all pretty close in price, but every one of them was about 40% higher than
> what my neighbor paid. This is far beyond normal inflation. Can you guess
> what raw material the increase is based on? If you answer yes, do you feel
> the increase was still unjustified?

Your analogy is poor. If they'd maintained the same price but quietly
noted that the thickness of the asphalt would be decreased, that's a
different matter.


> Your turn. You need to go back through the thread and actually read what
> I've written before you can tell me that I haven't come up with a better
> explanation.

The justification for a price increase isn't the issue I had commented
upon, and you mainly addressed justification. In one post, you made an
analogy to candy, stating that "There are different case packs for candy
- the ones intended for the displays by the cashiers, and the ones
intended to hang on pegs. We sell more of the former category, so it's
probably safe to say that impulse purchases are greater than purchases
made in the candy aisle. The size/price target is probably tuned to that
issue. In other words, which price point does better in which place in
the store?" How is that relevant to Breyer's ice cream? On one hand,
I've only seen it sold in a single section in the store (frozen foods),
and on the other, there aren't multiple types of packages anyway.

The one time you *did* directly comment on it, you supported my
statement. You wrote: "It's likely that Hershey has hard data which
indicates that they'll sell a lot more candy bars at 99 cents than at
$1.29, even if the more expensive one is bigger. Why do we expect
Hershey to choose the stupid decision instead of the smart one?" Which
is essentially what I said: they put a price increase into place by
cutting the amount of product while maintaining the same price. They
know that maintaining a *seemingly* low price for less product will keep
their sales higher than raising the price for the same quantity. Did I
ever call this a stupid decision?

People pay more attention to price than packaging specifications; almost
everyone would notice a significant price increase. But so long as the
bill doesn't go up, far fewer will notice that they got less product and
a similar increase in per-ounce cost.

So, you still need to give a better explanation. What reason do they
have for shrinking the size of the product without raising the price, if
it's not to raise the price without appearing to raise the price? The
*need* to raise the price was not the issue.

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