its technically two and a third fifths.
Evidently many people don’t notice. Scumbags perhaps, but when customers are idiots it doesn’t irritate me much.
This may have been to reduce the chance of someone printing off multiple tickets.
You’re paying more for the generic med, but I’ll bet the insurance company is paying less.
Brita water filters:
Three for $18.39. Each lasts two months, so it’s 18.39 six months.
Brita Elite filters. One for $19.99. Each lasts six months, so it’s $19.99 for three months – an extra $1.60 for the same amount of use.
Someone at Brita can’t do math.
And there it is, you nailed it in one! The generic is a lot less pleasant to inject, too. They don’t care as long as the money is flowing in.
I think that’s more “Yaay the law that requires them to do that.”
IIRC it was part of the regulations that went in when the FTC permitted shelf tags instead of price tags stuck on the items. All part of smoothing the transition to UPC when most consumers were (rightly) suspicious that if prices weren’t disclosed on the shelves, they’d just be made upon the spot by the cash register computer. Probably according to their estimate of how much you could stand to pay.
Ahh, yes, harken back to a Tyme of Yore when regulations favorable to consumers not only got passed, but got enforced.
Huh? They’re offing a better more convenient product for more money. Making 1 filter change not 3 is definitely an improvement in convenience.
And a better product whose name is “Elite”. I’m only surprised it’s $1.60 more, not $16 more. if there’s any bad math it’s in not charging a larger premium for a premium product. Of course they also gain more than the mere $1.60 retail because they avoid the cost of 2 filter cartridges, smaller packaging, etc.
It’s a trivial advantage. It’s not hard to change a filter.
I guess if you’re lazy and don’t have an extra two minutes to spare, it might seem like an advantage, but OTOH, it means it has six months of mildew when you clean the pitcher. And if you’re going to clean it every two months anyway, any advantage is negated.
Back when digital paper (or eInk, or whatever it’s called today) was first emerging, I worked for a big software company managing documentation (manuals and help systems). This was also the time of the Great Annoying Conversion from getting physical stuff when you bought software, to not.
I remember being deeply depressed to discover that the leading implementation of digital paper at the time was in creating shelf tags that were driven by exactly the “how much you could stand to pay” mechanic you describe: sensors tracked your credit card moving down the aisle and updated everything on all the shelves to suit YOUR price sensitivity.
I think that this is a seller’s wet dream, but I don’t see any way to actually do this in real life. Now, cell phones are a different story.
Before credit cards got tap-to-pay (actually an RFID chip) I agree there’d be no way to track the card itself.
With a tap-to-pay card (which are now the norm) it might be doable, but the range of the card is so short that they’d need a LOT of sensors along all the shelves. Like one one every shelf tag.
If I was tasked to design such a system now, I’d start with face tracking cameras at each end of each aisle. And one at each door to capture your face head-on as you came in. Then it’s trivial to tag your image with your identity and have the computer “follow” you around the store watching what you’re looking at.
Which system might also be a decent anti-shoplifting gizmo.
That seems unlikely to me, given that you’re rarely the only one in the store. So how do the prices adjust to match my sensitivity, which might be different from that of the shopper next to me?
On the other hand, I can see that digital shelf tags would be easier to update for sales or other price changes. So even without any sort of nefarious activity, they’re useful.
The digital paper shelf tags were in development at the time (a couple of decades ago) and my interest was their use of digital paper - I’m really not sure how they were doing the shopper detection and may be mis-remembering that they were using RFID on credit cards. Cell phones were pretty ubiquitous then and may have been the mechanism.
I do remember having conversations about the ethics of variable pricing, and having it pointed out that on some level all pricing is variable. There’s a TV ad now for some hotel booking agency where a guy gets annoyed when the guest checking out next to him gets a much better rate. There was a recent discussion here about how everyone in line at fast food joints these days pays a different amount depending on coupons, apps and loyalty points. I’ve long since given up on any expectation that “the price is the price.”
There was a recent discussion here about how everyone in line at fast food joints these days pays a different amount depending on coupons, apps and loyalty points. I’ve long since given up on any expectation that “the price is the price.”
That’s a minor plot point in the great tech book “Close to the Machine."
One that always amuses me is flavored Seltzer Water. We drink a lot, typically store own brand. The funny thing is most stores also sell some variety of own brand fruit soda that is clearly exactly the same thing, made in the same factory, almost all the same ingredients only with more of the flavoring. But because seltzer water is a such a high class beverage it costs more than the fruit soda despite being the same thing only more diluted.
I was once in line behind a woman at McDonald’s who was trying to convince the cashier of the same sort of thing. ‘But I only want one,’ she explained, and kept getting told that one Big Mac would cost more than two, given the 2-for-$2 special they were offering. She kept saying she didn’t want to buy two; she only wanted one, and didn’t want to waste the rest by throwing food away.
I, of course, offered to take the extra burger, which solved every problem.
Some time later, I walked into a gas station, where I heard a customer arguing with the cashier. ‘But I only want one,’ was the explanation being spelled out, and you know the reply; and, with my customary shrug, I put myself forward as their solution. I only then learned that a new question followed: what the heck am I going to do with a pack of cigarettes?
Keep them until you need them for currency in a Turkish prison?
I don’t get the logic of the ciggy purchaser here. Why would anybody who has use for 1 pack of cigarettes not have a use for 2? It’s not like a burger which is perishable.
The explanation I was given was: the idea is to buy one pack a day, and smoke one pack a day — and if they have two packs, they’re going to wind up smoking two packs that day.
You could buy a pretty nice mitre saw for that price and make a bunch of frames.