• Chocrates@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    3 months ago

    I was trying to think of an ergonomic justification, but probably they want to sell x amount of deodorant paste at $y price and to fill the thing and still charge that much would make the stick more expensive than they wanted.

    Shitty, thanks capitalism.

    • wellee@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      3 months ago

      Yeah, don’t get caught in the trap of trying to defend them lol, it’s a waste of time

      • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        3 months ago

        I hate to spoil a good consciousness raising party but it’s still useful to understand why companies do this stuff:

        • raising prices leads to more backlash than anything else

        • when costs go up, wholesale prices (per unit of product) must go up to match or the product becomes unprofitable

        • redesigning the package to fit the smaller amount of product requires very expensive retooling whereas dialing down the amount of product is basically free

        You might say “why do they have to be profitable at all?” But then why would they even bother making the product if they weren’t?

        • Aceticon@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          Shame that the record profits companies are having aren’t consistent with that “costs going up is what’s pushing shrinkflation” theory of yours but are absolutelly consistent with the theory that they’re trying to get away with increasing their profit margins by reducing material costs (by using less materials) whilst selling at the same price using tricks to deceive human perception of how much product comes in a package.

    • Lemming6969@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      3 months ago

      You can see the design they used is the maximum the plunger will go down without changing what might be a patented shape or making the whole thing larger or the top area smaller to shrink the plunger. It’s still wasteful and deceptive though.