This is standard shrinkflation. It’s not an attempt at fraud… or, at least, not traditional fraud.
If the public assumes a package of these pills is about $5, but now suddenly costs are $10, you just sell half-sized packages. The trouble for this particular kind of package is that it’s expensive as hell to retool an entire assembly line… but relatively easy to modify the dies that seal these up. You just deactivate a portion of the mechanism, and it only puts in 6 pills instead of 12.
Now, you can argue that the costs didn’t go up to $10, and that’s true at least some of the time. But this has been happening for years with other goods, they’re just less noticeable. If the macaroni box is only a half-inch shorter and a half-inch narrower, would you even notice?
All that said, I thoroughly support legislation that would prohibit deceptive packaging.
This is standard shrinkflation. It’s not an attempt at fraud… or, at least, not traditional fraud.
If the public assumes a package of these pills is about $5, but now suddenly costs are $10, you just sell half-sized packages. The trouble for this particular kind of package is that it’s expensive as hell to retool an entire assembly line… but relatively easy to modify the dies that seal these up. You just deactivate a portion of the mechanism, and it only puts in 6 pills instead of 12.
Now, you can argue that the costs didn’t go up to $10, and that’s true at least some of the time. But this has been happening for years with other goods, they’re just less noticeable. If the macaroni box is only a half-inch shorter and a half-inch narrower, would you even notice?
All that said, I thoroughly support legislation that would prohibit deceptive packaging.