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Sparkle Paper Towels: Less sheets = more rolls?!

You left out the most important piece of data: how many sheets were in a regular roll vs how many now are in a regular roll. If the regular roll shrunk from 63 sheets to 55 sheets, then the two packages you show are correct.
 
Toilet paper and paper towel math is a weird thing. They all play these games it seems. "1 roll = 2 rolls!" when reality is they just arbitrarily defined what size a regular roll should be.
 
The only metric that matters is the combined total area of the sheets in the package. Number of sheets/rolls is kind of useless, because they could also be shaving off total area as another cost saving measure, like when cereal boxes thinned over the last 15 years, or juice containers and ice cream containers have been shrinking ounces at a time. Rolls are just an easier way to hide that shrinkage.
 
Brainonska511 said:
ice cream containers have been shrinking ounces at a time
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You see, you just aren't thinking about it from a consumer point of view. Reaching the ice cream in the corners is a pain, so they kindly rounded the corners, put less ice cream in the box, and call it a benefit to us. Same thing with the large taper from the top to the bottom: less ice cream in the bottom means less sloppy scooping. It is all to help us, the consumer, with the scooping. Putting in far less ice cream must be some unexpected side issue. 🙄

Also, if you think about it, less ice cream means we need fewer paper towels. So, they are all just doing us a favor.
 
Once inflation is under control these manufacturers will go back to the previous size and their products will have big bold letters on the front saying "5% MORE FREE!"
 
Everything seems to be shrinking yet prices keep going up. And this is just generally accepted by society. "It's just inflation it's normal".
 
Red Squirrel said:
Everything seems to be shrinking yet prices keep going up. And this is just generally accepted by society. "It's just inflation it's normal".
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This isn't new. Having worked at a grocery store in the early 2000s, this tactic has been used for at least 20 years. Companies would rather shrink packages than increase prices because consumers are probably more price conscious than size-price conscious.
 
Brainonska511 said:
This isn't new. Having worked at a grocery store in the early 2000s, this tactic has been used for at least 20 years. Companies would rather shrink packages than increase prices because consumers are probably more price conscious than size-price conscious.
Click to expand...

Yeah been going on for a long time, but still does not make it right though. One way to look at it, it's basically like if there was a sales tax added to everything, and that tax went up every year. If they kept raising sales tax by a few % every year I think people would be pretty pissed.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Yeah been going on for a long time, but still does not make it right though. One way to look at it, it's basically like if there was a sales tax added to everything, and that tax went up every year. If they kept raising sales tax by a few % every year I think people would be pretty pissed.
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I mean, that is kind of what inflation is. You can't buy a house for $25000 like you could in 1960. It's just a shock when it happens all at once instead of slowly over time.
 
Whether it's slowly or fast is still bad though. Slowly is just more of a boiling frog effect and people notice less but we are still being robbed of our buying power one way or the other. You could buy a house for less than a car now, back in the day, pretty crazy. People are dumb though and are easy to manipulate into thinking something is normal and should just be accepted. Especially if you do it very slowly.

At some point my city had to raise the water bill because of major over-expenditure on a new treatment plant the council proposed a 1 time sudden increase that would be temporary or an ongoing increase forever. And everyone voted for the ongoing increase "because it hurts less". Well guess what 10ish years later we're paying just as much as what we would have paid if they went with the temporary increase, except now it's permanent. People don't have the ability to think long term.
 
Sparkle paper towels are bottom tier products, so in addition to "cost per sheet" pricing, you have to consider how msny sheets you need yo get the job done.
We almost only buy Bounty. Yes, they cost more, but they're more absorbent and a helluva lot stronger.
 
BoomerD said:
Sparkle paper towels are bottom tier products, so in addition to "cost per sheet" pricing, you have to consider how msny sheets you need yo get the job done.
We almost only buy Bounty. Yes, they cost more, but they're more absorbent and a helluva lot stronger.
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Apparently you've never actually experienced "bottom-tier" paper towels?

Sparkle isn't great mind you, but they're nowhere near the worst I've seen.

298c79bd-3b00-4786-81d5-3adc14df37ba_1.fc28f7779507266219d2ee3125054fce.jpeg
 
BoomerD said:
I didn't say they were the worst you could get...just bottom tier.
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"BOTTOM" pretty much means "worst you can get" since you can't get any lower except maybe for subterranean.

😛

So in the case of paper towels that would be stuff like the single-layer Walmart crap which disintegrates like toilet-paper when wet.

On my personal "paper towel scale" (lol) Sparkle rates just below Scotts in the MID-range because it really isn't absorbent enough. It IS fairly strong though and doesn't leave residue on glass just streaks of un-absorbed cleaner.

To be fair Bounty is my preferred brand and clearly works the best but I only like to buy it at Costco and I don't shop there often anymore.
 
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sdifox said:
Office paper is much higher quality than paper towel.
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Off topic but I need to say it, marked the beginning of much more assertive me.

2012-ish I worked for a small business, the job paid very little and had all the shitty drama that comes family businesses. Tough time to be looking for work.
I “managed” a small office, dude who worked there was bleeding after using the toilet. I asked him “are you okay?”. He said the toilet paper was too rough (which was true cheap staples unbranded stuff) and he recently had some hemorrhoids removed, the rough paper was irritating him.
I immediately ordered name brand soft toilet paper. Next day I get a call from I’ll call her Mary the accountant whom was the owners neighbor whom I doubt had any form of accounting degree but was a really, really odd person who today I would confidently say was on the spectrum somewhere.
Mary was very upset that I ordered such expensive toilet paper and that $20-something dollar expense (I ordered some medicated wipes too) was going to ruin the budget and that could effect payroll.
Without hesitation I said “Mary I think the urgent matter at hand and I need to have an answer on is why does a $20-something dollar expense ruin the budget so much pay checks may bounce?”. I need to have an answer because I cannot miss a weeks pay.
Silence
More silence
More silence
(Me waiting for an answer)
More silence
More silence
Mary: “Are you still there”
Me: “Yes, I am waiting for an answer as to why a $20 expense could mean the difference between making payroll or not”
She hangs up…..
 
I just love seeing brands get called out on their subterfuge.

Local store raised POWERFUL protein drink from $2.14/can to $3.14/can - no doubt hoping few would notice. That's a ~48% increase. Massive inflation.
If it weren't so essential, I'd no longer buy it, naturally. Instead, I try to buy less frequently.
 
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