Have You Ever Counted The Number Of Sheets On A Roll Of Toilet Paper?

Sneaky Ways Companies Are Getting You To Pay More For Less

When I was a kid my mother would occasionally buy a gallon of ice cream.  YUM.  Today the gallon of ice cream is pretty much gone.  What was once considered the standard has gotten smaller.  The new standard of ice cream measurement is three quarts.  It happened slowly and very little noise was made about it.

Here’s how it all went down.  Prices for ice cream slowly were creeping up.  Ice cream sales were slowly falling down because of the higher prices.  Then some genius at one of the companies making ice cream came up with the idea of downsizing the container and dropping the price a little bit.  Consumers took the bait and the next thing you knew ice cream sales were on the rise.  The company was smart.  They promoted the new lower price and never mentioned the new smaller size package.  

Other businesses took notice and now smaller product sizes with the same prices are more the rule than the exception.  Take for example, my Barbasol Shaving Cream.  A few years ago it was a 12 oz. can for 99 cents.  Then it went to an 11 oz. can for the same price.  Today that can is now 10 oz. for a penny less than a buck.  I know somebody is going to say to me, “Hey, it’s only an ounce or two.”  Yep – that’s right. But think about it from the company’s point of view.  In every case of 12 cans sold 1 can was almost pure profit.

Here’s an even better example that was mostly kept under the radar.  H.J. Heinz, the ketchup people, pulled a trick that made them untold amounts of money.  Back in the days of glass bottles of ketchup, somebody at Heinz came up with an illegal profit making gimmick.  They put 7 ounces of ketchup in a bottle labeled 8 ounces.  Unfortunately for them, they got caught.  

Here’s how it all came down.  A woman was carefully following a recipe that called for 8 ounces of ketchup.  She got out a new 8 ounce bottle of Heinz and dumped it into a measuring cup.  Much to her surprise there was only 7 ounces.  She checked another new bottle only to find 7 ounces.  She went to the store and bought another one only to get the same amount.  She realized that every 7 or 8 bottles sold Heinz was getting a free bottle to sell.  She also realized, as a consumer, she was getting ripped off.  She notified the Federal Trade Commission who pulled an inspection on the plant.  Heinz quickly confessed to the sin, paid a huge fine, and quickly swept a potential public relations nightmare under the carpet.   In the agreement Heinz did NOT have to tell how long they were doing it or if any other products were involved.  By not having to disclose how long that practice took place there is the potential that the company’s profits FAR exceeded the imposed fine.  That being the case they could do it again in the future.

At the beginning of this I mentioned toilet paper.  Toilet paper is manufactured in a paper conversion factory.  Toilet paper is made in logs and then cut down to individual rolls.  It only takes about 8 to 10 seconds to roll a log of toilet paper.  By adjusting the roll width by ½ inch you could squeeze an extra roll out of each log.  The factory could make an additional 4 roll pack in less than 45 seconds.  Now let’s assume this is only 50 cents a minute in additional profit.  If the company had 5 toilet paper lines with 20 hours running time per line per day the yearly profit increase would be $109,500.  

This next item I am about to share with you is a sneaky way an insurance company can raise the price of your premium.  You may have seen this advertisement on television, where a representative of the company says the price of the insurance is only $9.95 per unit and guaranteed never to go up.  WOW, what an attractive offer, your price is guaranteed for ever and ever to remain the same.  Think about that.  While you are thinking, remember the old adage, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.  Have you figured out the catch yet?  If not, let me help you.  The ‘Catch 22’ is in the use of the word “unit”.  The size of a unit is subject to change, and it’s pretty safe to say, the size of the unit will go down while the price remains the same, which in turn equals a back door price increase.  Oh, if this sounds a lot like the ice cream size gimmick I mentioned at the beginning, it’s because it’s the same.  Same price with a new smaller container.

In a previous blog, I mentioned the ever increasing world FEEs.  Here is the link to that blog goo.gl/M4bXk.  The world of the fee is a league of its own for varied and unlimited price increases.  

I’ve heard the argument, “I don’t worry about price increases.  It’s usually just a few cents.”  In some cases it actually is only just a few cents, but as any smart businessperson knows a few cents here and there add up to dollars and a few dollars here and there add up to big dollars.

That is the reason smart business people watch the pennies.  Pennies can translate in millions of bucks for a big company.  

Pennies at the consumer level may not appear to be much, however, that’s far from the truth.  Your pennies add up too.  

Think about this as an example - postage stamps were one time only two cents each.  Today, a postage stamp is currently $.46 and climbing.  During the day of the two penny stamp 1000 stamps would’ve cost you $20.  Today the same 1000 stamps would cost you a whopping $460, which is more than the cost of my car insurance for the entire year.  So there you have it, your pennies do matter.

Someday when you have extra time, just for fun, count the sheets on a new roll of toilet paper.  I sincerely hope you’re not surprised at what you find.


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