SCANDAL! Double Stuff Oreos shortchanging customers!

[Craig234]

The sad truth (that most don't see) is that they are raising the prices right under your nose and most of you don't see it.....by giving you a smaller amount in your package for the same (or higher) price.

See www.mouseprint.org for examples of what these guys are going. The toilet paper sizes are really eye opening (I've seen this in real life looking at Angel Soft at Walmart). Soon, you'll be buying the inner brown tube (which is growing in diameter) and you'll get free squares of toilet paper with it.

You're a company with a product X that's 16 ounces and sells for $1.99.

Five years later, your costs have gone up a lot. Ingredients, labor, rent.

You have choices.

1. Don't change anything; start selling at a loss because you like to give away money.

2. Raise the price.

3. Reduce the portion size.

4. Reduce the cost/quality of the ingredients.

5. Reduce the marketing - reducing sales, go to step 1 again.

6. Use slaves. Oh wait illegal.

So with these as the leading choices, companies have to pick something.

Price increases have a negative effect on customers competitive to other products (look at how the fast food industry has had to embrace 'value menus').

Reducing the quality of the product can permanently lose customers.

Basically, reducing portion size is often the least bad option.

It loses the fewest customers.

If you don't like it, then customers can avoid it by paying higher prices and saying so.

Customers don't say that.

As far as their hiding the reductions, I like 'honesty in advertising', but I have to acknowledge that it seems customers punish them more for being very up front about it.

 

[Craig234]

By the way, if they're going to call it double stuffed, it should have 2x. There are plenty of words that mean 'more'. Double means double.

Edit: now that I read the original post, 1.86 is a very minor offense to 'double'. I assumed it was something like 1.4 or 1.5.

 

[KLin]

Nabisco makes 33 different types of Oreos in production today:

Chocolate Oreos
Cool Mint Oreos
Double Stuf Oreos
Fudge Sundae Oreos
Golden Chocolate Oreos
Golden Double Stuf Oreos
Golden Oreo Cakesters
Golden Oreo Fun Stix
Golden Oreos
Halloween Oreos
Mini Oreo 12 Packs
Mini Oreos
Oreo 12 Packs
Oreo Cakesters
Oreo Chocolate Cakesters
Oreo Cones
Oreo Cookies and Cream Ice Cream
Oreo Fudge Rings
Oreo Fudgees
Oreo Fun Stix
Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches
Oreo Marble Mix’ins
Oreo Mini Cakesters
Oreo No-Bake Jello Dessert
Oreo Peanut Butter Cakesters
Oreo Pie Crust
Oreo Snack Cakes
Oreo Thin Crisps
Oreo Variety 12 Pack
Original Oreos
Peanut Butter Oreos
Reduced Fat Oreos
Sugar Free Oreos

Only reason they have so many varieties is so they can take up as much shelf space as possible, leaving the competition with less shelf space. InBev/AB and Miller-Coors do the same thing.

 

[natto fire]

Only reason they have so many varieties is so they can take up as much shelf space as possible, leaving the competition with less shelf space. InBev/AB and Miller-Coors do the same thing.

Yep. Used to work at Kroger, and there is a whole 'nother level to vendors that many don't understand, can even get personal/political at store level.

 

[Phokus]

A corporation cheating consumers? Say it ain't so!

 

[lxskllr]

lxskllr, ...but you're also better than this.

Perhaps. Maybe not too :^D

I'll blame it on being tired. I've been sleeping like crap lately, and it seems more often than not I wake up from a bad dream, and can't get back to sleep.

On topic, I get tired of corporations getting a free pass to abuse consumers. I shouldn't be going to war when I go grocery shopping, and carefully reviewing every purchase for possible ways of screwing me over. I can do math, and I've done more math professionally than most on this board, but when I pick up a "pint" of ice cream, it should be a pint. When I get a six pack of "12oz" beer bottles, it should have 72oz, and when I get a round tin of snus, of which, the size hasn't changed since it was first created in the 1960s, it should have 50g inside. Hiding price increases through deceptive packaging is scummy behavior, and I'll always reject it if I have a choice.

 

[Engineer]

You're a company with a product X that's 16 ounces and sells for $1.99.

Five years later, your costs have gone up a lot. Ingredients, labor, rent.

You have choices.

1. Don't change anything; start selling at a loss because you like to give away money.

2. Raise the price.

3. Reduce the portion size.

4. Reduce the cost/quality of the ingredients.

5. Reduce the marketing - reducing sales, go to step 1 again.

6. Use slaves. Oh wait illegal.

So with these as the leading choices, companies have to pick something.

Price increases have a negative effect on customers competitive to other products (look at how the fast food industry has had to embrace 'value menus').

Reducing the quality of the product can permanently lose customers.

Basically, reducing portion size is often the least bad option.

It loses the fewest customers.

If you don't like it, then customers can avoid it by paying higher prices and saying so.

Customers don't say that.

As far as their hiding the reductions, I like 'honesty in advertising', but I have to acknowledge that it seems customers punish them more for being very up front about it.

All good and well except that prices have still gone up and I see it week in and week out (as I do the grocery shopping and I'm a cheap bastard). As for increases in the company prices, what would those be? Material prices might have gone up, labor has been flat to negative for nearly a decade. Rents have been stable because of excessive factories sitting idle from those that have moved out of the US (leaving a surplus of empty factories/warehouses to rent). Oh wait, the executives and Wall Street bunch needs a larger profit. Nevermind the 2 trillion + dollars that these companies have sitting in cash....they need more. Oh, and let's not forget all time profits and sales levels....more...more...more..but let's close down a US factory and move the work to Mexico to get it. I'm sure that those laid off will still get enough money (credit, food stamps, etc) to buy our stuff.

It's a slap in the face.

 

[natto fire]

Perhaps. Maybe not too :^D

I'll blame it on being tired. I've been sleeping like crap lately, and it seems more often than not I wake up from a bad dream, and can't get back to sleep.

On topic, I get tired of corporations getting a free pass to abuse consumers. I shouldn't be going to war when I go grocery shopping, and carefully reviewing every purchase for possible ways of screwing me over. I can do math, and I've done more math professionally than most on this board, but when I pick up a "pint" of ice cream, it should be a pint. When I get a six pack of "12oz" beer bottles, it should have 72oz, and when I get a round tin of snus, of which, the size hasn't changed since it was first created in the 1960s, it should have 50g inside. Hiding price increases through deceptive packaging is scummy behavior, and I'll always reject it if I have a choice.

Maybe you have read too many threads. You haven't been irradiating yourself in P&N, right? There is no known cure for that forum, and most physicians recommend complete sterilization upon exposure.

I agree you shouldn't have to go to war when you go grocery shopping, just as there should not be a monopoly raping us on cell phone plans. Clearly corporations are not going to change their tune, so it is up to us consumers to make them pound sand.

Hopefully in my lifetime there will be enough regulatory agencies to control shady stuff companies do. I also hope we switch to the metric system in this period, but I do not have my hopes up for either.

 

[yottabit]

I like how the picture shows 2.68x for Mega Stuf but the article states 2.86x.

In an article that's all about 1/10ths that's a pretty huge error

Also, not a statistically significant test, especially since I'm assuming all the Oreos came from the same bag.

Reminds me of this lawsuit:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...ates-alcohol-in-budweiser-lawsuit-claims.html

 

[alkemyst]

All good and well except that prices have still gone up and I see it week in and week out (as I do the grocery shopping and I'm a cheap bastard). As for increases in the company prices, what would those be? Material prices might have gone up, labor has been flat to negative for nearly a decade. Rents have been stable because of excessive factories sitting idle from those that have moved out of the US (leaving a surplus of empty factories/warehouses to rent). Oh wait, the executives and Wall Street bunch needs a larger profit. Nevermind the 2 trillion + dollars that these companies have sitting in cash....they need more. Oh, and let's not forget all time profits and sales levels....more...more...more..but let's close down a US factory and move the work to Mexico to get it. I'm sure that those laid off will still get enough money (credit, food stamps, etc) to buy our stuff.

It's a slap in the face.

Fuel costs, bro. Gas is getting expensive so 'everyone' decided to reduce. 12 packs became 8 packs, 16 ounces became 12. Half Gallon, became 1/2 a quart less. etc.

No one stopped buying, if they did the factories would right size it.

 

[cubby1223]

?

Double-stuff oreos are at the correct level.

The company is pumping in too much cream into their single-stuff oreos. Best enjoy as much of their mistake before they notice.

 

[midwestfisherman]

Son of a bitch!! You can't even trust Nabisco now!!!