![]() ![]() He has spent decades tracking instances of companies shrinking products on his website Mouseprint. ![]() He refers to it by its original name, downsizing, but economist Pippa Malmgren rechristened it "shrinkflation" about a decade ago, and the term stuck. Downsizing and shrinkflation both refer to the same thing: companies reducing the size or quantity of their products while charging the same price or even more. "Downsizing is really a sneaky price increase," Dworsky says. But if the orange juice container goes from 64 ounces to 59 ounces, they're probably not going to notice." They can tell instantly if they're used to paying $2.99 for a carton of orange juice and that goes up to $3.19. If consumers were the rational creatures depicted in classic economic theory, they would notice shrinkflation. They would keep their eyes on the price per Cocoa Puff and not fall for gimmicks in how companies package those Cocoa Puffs. ![]() Koehler analyzed data from the market for cereal and other sectors and found that consumers are much more gullible than classic theory predicts. They are more sensitive to changes in price than to changes in quantity. Companies, of course, have known this for years. The case of the shrinking toilet paper rollīack in the day, Dworsky says, he remembers buying bigger candy bars and bigger rolls of toilet paper. The original Charmin roll of toilet paper, he says, had 650 sheets. Now you have to pay extra for "Mega Rolls" and "Super Mega Rolls" - and even those have many fewer sheets than the original. To add insult to injury, Charmin recently shrank the size of their toilet sheets. Shrinkflation, or downsizing, is probably as old as mass consumerism. ![]()
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