The IKEA store near me has a section near the customer services and collections point that’s like a pick ‘n’ mix candy setup, except it’s all dowels, screws, etc - I’ve seen people there stuffing their pockets with more parts than can possibly have been missing from a dozen kits.
Some Lego sets now come with extras of the smallest pieces.
Sometimes I’ll open a package of crackers or something and find coupons printed on the inside. Yeah, you have to buy more, but if it’s something you like and were going to buy anyway, it’s a nice bonus.
I bet it saves a lot of money to have only one bottle design to keep in stock.
And lots of pills are so tiny that a bottle only large enough to contain 25 of them would be too small for normal fingers to handle.
I doubt the design here is intended to be deceptive.
I don’t know if this is a universal thing for Ikea, but the one I’ve gone to in Berkeley has an assortment of the bits & pieces in their customer service area, so if you’re missing a screw or wooden dowel, you can just grab one and go.
Not sure if this one is in the context of the thread, but for the past while, car manufacturers have been trying to figure out how to take pictures of tiny cars so that they look huge. The first time I drove up behind a Tesla, I was kind of shocked at how huge those things are from behind… they have been minimizing the size of the car, rather than emphasizing it.
Heh heh heh. A friend pointed out to me that Geo originally used Harlan Ellison as a spokesbeing because in the commercials he made the cars look midsized…
I bought an electronic chess set back in the day that came with an extra queen and an extra pawn for each side. The queen was because it’s possible to promote a pawn to a second queen, and the pawn was because that’s the piece you’re most likely to lose.
The notion of a “baker’s dozen” has similar origins: The law set very harsh penalties for any baker who gave less than a dozen items for the dozen price, so to be safe in the event of a miscount, bakers got into the habit of giving 13 for the price of 12. Of course, then consumers started expecting that, so you’d probably still get complaints if someone only got 12 of whatever, but at least they wouldn’t be in trouble with the law.
On video games, for the processor (CPU or graphics) speed, you can usually get by on low settings with somewhere between half and three quarters of what’s listed, but going under on the memory requirements will usually cost you severely, and it’s impossible on less than the listed hard drive requirement.
Not exactly the same thing but Apple is one of the only computer manufacturers that pretty commonly undercounts battery life.
nm, Chronos beat me to it.
I only get pills in blistered foil (to Keep them fresh); are you sure that the 25 pills in a big bottle don’t draw water faster than in a small bottle?
RE baker’s dozen…
I always thought the reason for a baker’s dozen (cookies, etc.) was due to the relatively small cost of the actual ingredients vs. other costs like overhead, personnel, etc. Tossing in an extra cookie impresses the customer more than it costs the bakery. After all, that extra cookie might otherwise end up in the trash – not everything baked gets sold anyway.
I’m pretty sure the baker’s dozen is more related to the weight of the items than their number. Each item can be a bit below its advertised weight without a problem if you just give everyone an extra one.
No, the practice of either given customers one more roll, or making the rolls bigger, goes back to Europe Middle Ages, when (esp. during times of hunger and high bread Prices) bakers were often suspected of selling loaves/ rolls that didn’t weigh enough.
Esp. if the local City council decreed that the Price for a loaf of bread could not rise above x guilders, but the wheat Prices continued to rise, the margin for the baker got rather small.
And similar to millers, who were often accused of dishonesty, because hey, you bring a whole bag of wheat and get less of a bag of flour (because the rest is chaff), bakers also start with dough that weighs x kg, but after baking weighs less (because some of the water evaporates), but Looks bigger (because it has risen). So the bakers weigh before putting it inside the oven and trust their experience, but don’t want the City council guy who Comes around checking up to nail their ear to the wall for cheating. So better add a bit to be on the safe side.
Not so much recently. https://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/12/explaining-the-battery-life-problems-with-the-new-macbook-pros/
In Australia, our Fish and Chip shops sell Potato Cakes (you may call then potato scallops, potato patties or hash browns - things like that).
It is a LAW :D:D:D:D:D that you must receive one more potato cake then you order - ie ‘2 snapper, chips and a potato cake’ means you will get 2 potato cakes. If you order 3 potato cakes, you will get 4. No exceptions permitted.
If any shop fails to deliver, the resulting backlash will see it shut down immediately.
On the topic of deceptive packaging, one thing I notice regularly and am constantly baffled at is how Imodium AD is packaged. The box looks like it was made to contain two bottles of Imodium. The interior of the box is divided directly down the middle, as if it was made to hold two products. Yet, there is never anything but one bottle in these boxes. The other section of the box, which would fit another bottle of Imodium perfectly, is always totally empty. I am flummoxed as to why this is. I mean, as soon as you pick up the package, it’s clearly evident that it only contains one bottle. It’s not as if people buying it are expecting double which makes them think it’s a great deal. The only way you’d think that is if you looked at the size of the package, without reading anything on the package or picking it up.
I-just-don’t-get-it. The volume of paper products wasted from these packages, when considered on a global scale (or at least national scale) is ridiculous.
they used to do that with 2 boxes on the bottom box flap one was the "minuiumn requirements to run " and the "suggested requirements "
the actual requirements were usually somewhere in the middle …
Ive been told that as long as it states “product is sold by weight not by volume” you could sell 1 chip that weighs 2 pounds if the bag of chip says its a 2 pound bag
The most blatant one I’ve seen: this Noxzema jar. Contains two ounces less than the old jar, but it’s still the same size. How is that possible? A false bottom.
Of course, sometimes, they can keep the package size the same and underfill by a whole 25%, as in the case of McCormick’s black pepper. It’s a lot harder to verify that you’re getting what you’re paying for in the case of something like pre-ground pepper, where the packaging is largely sealed except for shaker holes and one or two narrow slots to admit small measuring spoons.
As far as wine bottles go, 750 ml is 750 ml regardless of the bottle shape.
I continually to be impressed by items that need assemble, that include all the tools to do it.