"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...
Doug Kanter wrote:
...
Now that we've eliminated evil as a motive, what's left? As a person who
understands business, what OTHER reasons can you come up with? There HAVE
to
be reasons. What are they?

Again, no one else has said it was "evil" although I do believe it
verges on unethical (although I'm sure those who choose to do so can
convince themselves that it's ok because, after all, the label says what
is in the container).

Actually, the reasons are quite simple--

1. People are price-conscious...see the "99 cent" pricing syndrome.

2. People have been conditioned to expect certain things to be in
certain size packages--coffee in 1-lb tins, for example. People tend to
not actively scan similar-sized containers for the actual label, so it
is possible to "get by with" a price increase, on the whole, w/o
actually acknowledging it. This is, of course, the previous argument
against the practice, but it is a real factor in the pricing and
purchasing mentality.

So it boils down to an argument in psychology and the marketeers and
advertisers have determined they optimize their overall return by using
the subterfuge of raising prices by lowering quantity as opposed to
raising prices on fixed quantities.

Well, I think the solution is for enough people to bitch directly to
Sherwin-Williams, claiming that the precise one gallon size is important
because it allows people to determine surface coverage in a predictable way.
Of course, this isn't quite true, because humidity and a few other random
things can affect whether seven nineteenths of an ounce makes a difference,
but if enough people yell about it, that won't matter.

About 5 years ago, there was a plot afoot to reduce the size of cans of
evaporated milk. I heard about it 2 months ahead of time because I'm in the
grocery business. It never happened. Initially, I wondered if an army of
home bakers got all over the manufacturers' cases, but it might've been
bigger than that. Unrelated manufacturers often specify "one such-and-such
ounce can of evap milk" in recipes. So, it might've been insider influence
that put a stop to it.

The idea made no sense. The vast majority of evaporated milk is sold around
holidays. Tell your average grandma that the price of the stuff's gone up
forty cents since last year and she'll say "So? It's Easter".