When pack sizes shrink why don’t their prices?

This is all getting really tiresome. We could spend the rest of our lives listing endless examples until we reach the point where all there is left on the shelves are empty packs, (or just totally blank spaces if the environmentalists have their way).
No matter how the supermarkets/manufacturers try to hide it with their lame excuses, its nothing short of THEFT!!!
Before buying a new car/computer/TV or whatever, I look at the details, go see examples of them etc, before placing an order. When it arrives, I don’t expect my car to be lacking the alloy wheels I was expecting, or my computer to have 20% less hard drive space etc. I expect them to be the same as current examples, unless I am told otherwise.
So why should it be that I buy something that APPEARS to be exactly the same as the last one I bought, only to find that a substantial portion of it is missing!!
They are literally ROBBING us, and it’s time Which? stopped reading all this, and DOES SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!

While I agree that the car analogy may not have been the best example, I think the basic point is still true – we ARE being robbed through DELIBERATE and INTENTIONAL DECEPTION.
If you buy something week after week, I think you are fully entitled to expect what appears to all intents and prposes to be the same thing to be just that – the SAME thing. Yes that small print will indeed show that the contents are a certain quantity, (though not because they want you to know how much there is or isn’t in there), but everything else is exactly the same, and as such they are presenting the item in every way they can as BEING the same item – when, of course it isn’t. This is true not only where they have reduced the overall quantity, but even worse in my mind, where they actually CHANGE the contents – invariably for the worse – by reducing or removing the “best” bits (eg, the quantity of meat in a meat and potato pie), once they have got people buying it.
As for concrete proposals to deal with it, I have suggested before, that where changes in quantity or other content are altered, they should be CLEARLY displayed on the FRONT of the packet/container – with a minimum area/type size etc – and such notice should be included for a certain period of time – 3 months say.
This conversation is running on a Which? site, and it’s time Which?, as an organisation to protect the consumer started to do just that, and put an end to these con tricks.
Finally, if people sat there in apathy because “nothing can be done about it” we’d all still be dying in droves in our childhood at the hands of greedy mill owners!

The whole point here is that it’s not the PRICE thats changing. We can all see the price because its clearly there in front of us to see, while the contents of a tin or packet are hidden from view. If I buy a kg of something from a greengrocer, while the price may vary, I don’t expect to get it home, and find it now only contains 900g.
I do feel we have a RIGHT not to be conned, and while they hide behind legal mumbo-jumbo that’s no excuse for allowing it to continue.

I give up! You are clearly the supermarket’s dream customer who will accept any sort of abuse from them. Unfortunately, as you pointed out earlier, there are so many people who meekly go along with the same resigned attitude. Well I don’t, and I’m sure there must be plenty of people out there who can see how we are all being taken advantage of, and surely must feel this isn’t right. What’s not right is WRONG, and needs changing.

” It is not going to happen because advertising and marketing is based on deception and misrepresentation. ”

Not really. This is the kind of paranoid conspiracy nonsense that doesn’t really wash.

Advertising is about presenting a product in its best light and trying to persuade you to buy it. It’s not deceptive ( in fact, it’s not allowed to be; there are codes of practice for that sort of thing ) but it does put a positive spin on things.

There are two types of marketing. There’s crap marketing – where you try and convince the public to buy the crap product that you make – or there’s good marketing – where you find out what the public would like to buy and try and convince the organisation you work for to make it for them.

Most of the leading organisations in business try and do good marketing rather than the bad marketing. Most of the companies that do bad marketing ( ie Ratners ) get found out in the end.

Yup. Been in marketing twenty years. Partly at supplier, and partly at retailer.

And whether you lot believe me or not, I try my best to do the good marketing I spoke about – ie if consumers tell me they want a better product, or a cheaper version, or more chocolate or whatever then I try and persuade the business to make it happen.

The one time I had to ‘ value engineer ‘ ie keep the price the same but make the product lower quality I fought it all the way. In the end though there wasn’t anything else we could do.

As for Ratner – well, you might admire his honesty, but that honesty cost him his business. What lesson does that teach us ?

” How is inflating a situation to it’s maximum to highlight the need for a product, not deceptive/misleading? Advertisers/marketing speak should be allowed to say “this is our product, it can do this, this and this”
Instead we get, “You may have this go wrong or that go wrong, you could need this, or have to pay [insert inflated maximum here]… if you buy our product blah blah blah”
A good product will always sell itself, no need for making up scenarios to lure a customer in.
Like the new album or film that’s advertised on TV – if it was any good the marketing people wouldn’t have to waste their budgets on advertising it would they! ”

I’m sorry, but this is totally wide of the mark. Yes, there are some misleading / scaremongering ads out there – and as a consumer I hate those too. ( My personal bugbear at the moment are all those ‘ have you been missold PPI ? ‘ ads – enough already ! ) But the majority of ads are pretty accurate. When I make an ad ( and I’ve made dozens ) I try and be funny, engaging, humourous and direct. Where’s the harm in that ? I also get the script checked by the Advertising Standards Authority – and they check to make sure I’m not making any misleading claims.

As for ‘ a good product will sell itself ‘ – I’m sorry, but that’s just garbage. I know of some brilliant products that are struggling simply because people just don’t know about them. You have to advertise so that people know you exist !

As for this: ” Next we will be told that the companies pay for all the expensive advertising. That is undoubtedly true, of course, but where does the money come from? ” – yup, you got it – the companies pay for the advertising themselves, using money generated from the sale of the products. For a new product, companies often make a loss ( ie spend more on advertising than they generate in revenue ) in the belief that once it is established they will make the money back.

Hardly daylight robbery, is it ? Honestly, I should dig out one of my old product P&Ls so you lot can see exactly what goes on. The level of naivety on this thread is staggering in places.

I’ve already accepted that I’m something of a lone voice on this thread. That’s fine. I don’t expect any of you to agree with me. Clearly you’re far happier with this as some kind of ‘ misled-consumer-support-group ‘ . That’s fine too. If you read my earlier comments you’ll see that I accept that there are some sharp practices in retail ( mainly in property management and promotional pricing though rather than ongoing retail price ) and manufacturing.

But seriously – this ‘ All advertising is lies, All retail is robbery, All suppliers are greedy ‘ stuff just doesn’t hang together. Are you all really so cynical that you find it hard to believe that some ( the majority, even ) companies just want to make decent products, sell them at a fair price, and make a reasonable return ?

As I’ve already said, I’ve worked for three major retail chains in the UK. All of them have been very clear that customer value, customer satisfaction and product quality are at the very heart of what they do. And not just in shareholder meetings, but in internal discussions too. I’ve been in meetings where we’ve been told to reduce all our prices because we weren’t offering good enough value for customers – and you still think that supermarkets only exist to rip you off ? I’m not disputing that some dodgy things don’t happen from time to time, and that mistakes don’t get made – but genuinely, all this cynicism is so misplaced.

Any retailer / supplier that thinks the route to long term profit growth is ripping off its customers is an idiot. The only way to succeed is to generate loyalty with your customers by providing better quality, better service, better value than your competitors. THAT is what the supermarkets are focusing on. Why do you think that Asda are so obsessed with low prices ? ( and trust me, they are. ) Or that Tesco are pumping millions into putting more staff into stores to reduce queue lengths at the checkout ?

I’ve been in marketing for over twenty years. In all that time I have tried hard to be the voice of the consumer in my organisation. I’ve fought for better quality, lower prices, better packaging, clearer advertising – all the things you’ve complained about in this thread.

And to find that some of you are so cynical that you can only believe the worst of me and what I do – it just really depresses me.