Today I was trying to use up some old stuff in the fridge, and I found a plastic tub of cream cheese that needed some loving attention. Then I noticed I was scraping the bottom before I expected to find bottom – there was a false bottom.
I can think of two reasons for that. One would be to strengthen the container. Who wants floppy cream cheese? Two would be to make you think it contained more that it really does.
But maybe the deception was an accident. If so, we should be able to find packaging that, while deceptive, is in the consumer’s favor. Look – there’s more inside than you expected!
But I can’t think of any such examples. Even sliced bacon, which may have an extra slice tucked out of sight in the back, might be put there to make the entire package bulge and look larger than it really is.
Wine and champagne often has a dimple in the bottom. Stronger bottle, and makes it possible to store on a peg, but is that really the reason?
Examples of less-than-meets-the-eye are easy to find. Anybody know of the opposite?
I thought of one or really many! I have a whole bucket of extra IKEA fasteners, screws, dowels, nails, etc. and they are not the only company that puts in an excessive number of parts to cover losing multiple parts for assembly.
I can’t imagine any examples in line with the examples given. Deceptively short quantity is almost always bad.
However, not all companies are actively trying to screw you and sometimes they mean what they say literally. Victorinox (Swiss Army knives among other things) really does have a true lifetime warranty and so does LL Bean. I have had them repair or replace things that I had already used constantly for years and they will happily do it. I worked for a shoe company that once had a true lifetime warranty. I was doing some work in a remote call center in 2000 when a doctor called in and was not happy that his favorite pair of shoes finally failed. He bought them in the mid-1970’s but they still gave him a new pair and told him to call back if those ever wore out.
The only good packaging experiences I have ever had were when the quality was much better than expected for the price or extras like spare parts were carefully included.
The best though is when you order a nine piece Chicken McNugget meal from McDonalds and they give you ten.
The videogames I play with my new graphics cards usually look better or are more artistic than the generic 3D rendering on the box.
Which is an interesting about-face from the very early video games that had awesome looking drawings on the box, but heavily pixelated graphics in the game.
Funny you should mention IKEA. I just bought a shelf from them, wanting a better quality structure than a Wal-Mart unit. But the fasteners – the little cams that tighten to hold things together – were of plastic, and broke too easily. And there were no extras, so I replaced them all with metal ones from the local hardware store.
The reason for the “punt” or the indentation in the bottom of a wine bottle is actually lost to history. But now we are stuck because consumers will assume that a bottle without one is cheaper or lower quality. It actually eats into the profit margin as those bottles are more expensive. Low quality cheap “wine” like Thunderbird or Night Train have flat bottoms because of the cost and consumers will associate higher market segment targeted wines as being cheaper if the bottle lacks a punt.
But not to worry there the TSB is very strict on bottle sizes and quantities. All wine or liqueur will be sold only in federally approved containers and quantities.
I used to work for a big food manufacturer. We had full fat peanut butter and low fat peanut butter. The company wanted both packages to be the same weight (say 18 ounces) and the same jar size (same height and diameter). Since the full fat and low fat had different densities, the only way to do that was to put a false bottom in the low fat jar.
Yes and no. A dimple at all is an Advantage over flat bottom if there is a lot of pressure inside (I’ve never heard about storing it on a peg, though?) But some manufacturers abuse it and make the dimple incredibly big.
Another example for dishonest packaging often given are potato Chips (crisps), where the bags are 3/4 air. The official Explanation is that the air cushions the crisps which would otherwise crumble to nothing during Transport. Suspicious is however how much the air Portion has increased over the past decades…
However, the differences still remain when you compare TV adverts for free-to-play mobile games. It’s pretty much impossible for them to look as good on the devices as they do on the TV due to the small screen size.
In about 90% of the cases, I had the exact amount of screws etc. in the Little plastic bag as described on the instruction booklet. In one or two cases atmost I think, I had to call because a Piece was missing, and in more cases than that, some pieces were left over.
Interesting is that it used to be you called and could collect any missing screws without any proof. Apparently, People abused the System, so now if you are missing screws, you go to a vending machine and pay 0.50 or 1 Euro (I think you get a coupon for that amount back?).
i have heard it’s due in part to the change in frying oil. Something about removing trans-fats created a packaging issue where more air space is needed - for cushioning more fragile chips? - to allow greater expansion from outgassing? I can’t recall.
I’ve done small-parts QA and these days it can be done very accurately, mostly by weighing. Unless I open the baggie hastily or drop a part, I find a small pleasure in having exactly the right number of nails, screws, pegs etc.
But almost every to-assemble piece of furniture I’ve bought in the last decade has had one extra packet… with one of each fastener in it.
I have never heard whether IKEA specifically sorts all their screws etc. by weight or by Robot-camera (some of These screws are very similar in size and weight), but I always figured it’s cheaper for IKEA to add one extra than to deal with the hassle / bad PR of the customer not being able to finish his Billy bookcase this evening because of a missing screw, damit!
Speaking of game packaging, publishers tend to overstate the system requirements on the box of PC games. Which makes some sense: better to set the floor high and give yourself some breathing room for low-end users than to have people upset that their game set to minimum graphics doesn’t look like the box. Still, many games can be played on lower end systems than what the box indicates.
The packaging says there will be “Approx 11” snacks in each box, but I’ve always gotten 12. It’s really just a cover for the odd short box, but I don’t mind.