Sales Aren’t What They Seem
I recently wrote about a trip to Wal-Mart where I noticed their pricing in the soda aisle was a little wacky. Today I saw something even more egregious. Take a close look at the two packages of deodorant below (click for larger). One is a single pack and the other is a “Twin Pack” with the words “Special Value” written on top. See the problem?
Check the price at the bottom. The single stick works out to be $13.10 per pound while the “Special Value” twin pack is actually more expensive at $13.80 per pound. The privilege of having Unilever wrap two sticks of deodorant in some decorative cellophane will end up costing you an extra $0.22 over just buying two of the individual sticks.
Duh! :-)
This is a common sales scam and I do mean scam. It’s what I like to call…implied savings.
Target pulls this stunt all the time. To be fair, they’re smarter than Wal-Mart in that they don’t necessary put the items directly next to each other, they don’t tell you the price per unit of volume/weight, and they usually use prices that are more difficult to multiply for comparison.
You really must read The Consumerist (consumerist.com), which details the myriad ways you can become a savvier consumer.
Hmm. Good spot.
I think the bigger question here is why are you buying degree???? That stuff smells horrible :P