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Comment by didgeoridoo | Hacker News Reader

I’d love to see some data on whether MSRP and average actual price paid have diverged over the years. It does feel like everything is perpetually “discounted” these days. If Price is Right is using the manufacturer’s list price, this would help explain why contestants undershoot more now — because the prices they tend to see advertised are in fact ~20% lower.

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Prices on most things have also gone up somewhat substantially over the last 5 or more years fast enough I find I still think of some things being the price they were before and end up being surprised.when I realize it's been more expensive for a while.

The discount trickery plays into it. You never notice the price increases at first as it's fairly standard all around from what i've seen to raise the base price during a sale, to the point where i've seen them raise the base price at the same time a sale starts then, cross out the new 'old' price and show how great of a sale it is. Then the sale ends and the price is higher.

If you live the the US, that’s likely a violation of FTC regulations against deceptive pricing[0].

My guess is that the “discount” phenomenon has a somewhat more innocent explanation; it’s the result of aggressive inventory management and sophisticated dynamic pricing models. Launch at a high price to snag the price-insensitive customers, and gradually discount down to pull in the lower end of the market and keep your unit volume relatively predictable (very helpful for just-in-time inventory management).

[0]: https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=b9b38b61c935105b8a...

I'm not sure, I live in Canada. I know years and years ago the grocery store I used to work at did this. We were told when I worked there that's specifically what they did.

You just described the Pixel launch model. Launch at X in October then by Black Friday have a $200 off deal or 25% pricing by other vendors for the life of the phone.

I wonder if that means the Pixel line is a much cheaper flagship, if the discount price is assumed to be the actual price execs are targeting after launch. I got a Pixel 2 then later a 3 for like 2/3 sticker price off promos by vendors and I'm happy with the price/features/etc. But I wouldn't pay launch price or it.

> Prices on most things have also gone up somewhat substantially over the last 5 or more

Have the effective prices gone up? Or have "normal prices" gone up and discounts increased in lockstep?

Apparently companies tried that and the consumers didn't like it even though prices were comparable or actually better.

It has been established as a norm annoyingly to those who would rather not have the noise.

> It does feel like everything is perpetually “discounted” these days.

Agreed, most of our general supermarket shopping seems to be on some significant "discount" since most of the time, to the point where we consider that the 'real' price and will avoid buying things when they're not discounted.

My general rule for shopping is that the real price of an item is the lowest price that it routinely goes "on sale" for.

Some examples (in my area):

- The real price of a can of Coke at my grocery store is $.25/can or $3.00/12pk

- The real price of Aerie underwear is $3.50/pair.

- The real price of KitchenAid stand mixers is $189.99

I do that mentally as well, but I generally ignore the word “sale”, and just focus on the most frequent low price.

Around a decade ago I regularly bought a particular food product for $10.99. Then one week it was 13.99. The following week it was “on sale” for 11.99. Then it went up to 12.99 for a few weeks before going back to 10.99. It was eye opening and I also learned to stock certain products.

This won't work for loss leader discount though.

Clothing and furniture are the most egregious in this regard.

So many stores with "everything 30% off!" signs out front that have been in the sun so long they're cracked and fading.

I’ve found Kohl’s to be a great example of this. If you happen to find something that isn’t 30, 40% off, just try again next week.

Was looking for this comment! I was at Kohl's with my wife and I saw the sticker price and was ready to leave, and she said, "oh, that's not the price you'll pay, everything has a discount." I don't like that game and I've not gone back.

This is exactly what my dad said about Sears in the 80s and 90s

I don't think my mother has ever paid full price at Macy's.

At the stores that use paper pricetags still, before you buy anything expensive, just rifle through the other pieces of paper behind the pricetags.

Sure, today it says "30% off". Behind, though, are pages for 50% off, 40% off, and 65% off

Then you know it isn't really on sale now.

I have to admit the Kohl's 'sale price' thing totally worked on me. I bought a piece of luggage that was marked down from around $300 to around $150. I felt very good about having acquired such a fine item for half price. Later I wondered if I would have felt as good paying $150 without thinking it was 'worth' $300. Of course I would not have.

the 'real' price has and will always be the price you are paying.

> will avoid buying things when they're not discounted.

A UK panel show called Mock the Week had a segment where panelists were asked to come up with ads that never made it to air. One panelist simply said "the DHS sale has ended". DHS (sofa retailer) is so renowned here for its perpetual sale that at this point they simply can't not have a "sale" on, as it'd confuse customers.

I wonder if companies should be forbidden of advertising discounts at all, maybe they should just list what is the price and the customers can look out the price history and compare with competitors themselves (which is the defence mechanism for the current situation).

I really don't like the idea of living in a society where companies I buy things from are trying to scam me by using Pavlov-esque techniques of using fake discounts to get my attention, especially because that works. Really, is that the society we want to have?

I would like to hear counter arguments to this.

You should see the documentary PROPAGANDA: Engineering Consent, on Edward Bernays' theory.

A lot of products you buy, especially those featured on The Price is Right, aren't sold directly to you they're sold to other companies/distributors for wholesale prices then they sell it on to you (or sometimes another step through a distributor). The manufacturer has no association with you at all and having them fix a price would remove competition from all those stores. It's coming really close to being a price control cartel too, it'll just mean stores can't compete on price to get you into their doors which will probably mean higher prices.

I think about this (in different flavors) all the time. It all comes down to: how much government control do you want in society? For places like the US, well, the answer was at the time of its founding: as little as we can afford (but then again, I don't think the founding fathers could have predicted how absolutely gargantuan the federal government was going to get). The idea of "as little government as possible" was a rough model that continued to thrive as people migrated westward and states were incorporated. With such little oversight came eras like the Gilded Age, during one can see the birth of the modern corporation and the freedoms they took to grow and exploit their markets as they saw fit, all in the name of profits.

We're now arguably in the middle of a 2nd Gilded Age; the size and scope of tech companies today would make the JP Morgan's/Rockefeller's of yester-century red with envy, and we've done jack shit as a society to hold them accountable for just about everything. And if we're in the middle of a 2nd Gilded Age, are we also in need of a 2nd wave of Progressivism? Most likely. I don't know how much they could get done though. The modern model of policymaking (especially at the federal level) is so choked with so many voices trying to get the attention of politicians that you often need a hefty budget to get anything done. Even then, it's at a snail's pace. And even if something smelling of a 2nd Progressive wave started to percolate, the sky-high polarization of public discourse on the Internet would make it nigh-impossible to get the facts straight. It makes it an even tougher sell to Americans that hate big government that we need to implement sensible legislation that is in their best interest.

This is probably one of the biggest hurdles today to getting anything done: convincing the general public that corporations are not your friend and do not/never will have your best interests at heart.

> I really don't like the idea of living in a society where companies I buy things from are trying to scam me by using Pavlov-esque techniques of using fake discounts to get my attention, especially because that works. Really, is that the society we want to have?

I concur with this sentiment strongly. I use websites such as CamelCamelCamel to see how long it has been at this "sale" price. But this only works for Amazon. I would love to see an equivalent site that tracks for many more websites.

It's particularly disgusting when you see "Black Friday Sales" that are an actual increase in the price. I saw a picture of a price tag of $219.99, with a sticker overlaid with a price of $249.99 with a "sale" price of $229.99. The kicker was the sticker was slightly transparent, and you could clearly see the original $219.99 underneath.

I've heard there are places with legislation that says you can only have on sale for as long as it was at the pre-sale price. I think this could help fight places with perpetual sales. The sad thing is this has become so ingrained in our culture, that when JC Penny tried to stop doing this, they lost a ton of customers, and a significant amount of money [0]. There would have to be a significant culture shift to go away from this.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxfkWZPAUg4

The only thing I track over the years is the price of a regular sized candy bar at the grocery store checkout. When I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s, they were $0.25, and now they are $1.25 or more.

Has the weight remained the same?

Nope - in fact, I hear that they prefer to change the size rather than the price because consumers tend not to notice it as much.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/25401945

That's basically matched to inflation - would be more surprised if unchanged

I have heard that too, but I don't believe in it. If they do it, it must be applied only in specific circumstances, and with some other mechanism to restore the size again. Because containers aren't getting silly small over time. They seem to be pretty much aimed at whatever is a convenient amount.

Coffee is sometimes that way. For more expensive beans brands’ll cut the weight and keep the price the same, shelve it right next to the other stuff. You have to check the weight to see which ones are expensive.

[edit] and of course 12oz has replaced 16oz as the “standard” size.

The UK mandates putting 'price per unit' on the price labels, which makes this kind of comparison a lot easier.

Some stores in the US have that, some don’t, and it’s always a lot smaller than the total price when they do.

I've come to really enjoy grocery shopping, planning a week worth of meals, being adaptive when good deals come up, trying new things, working to minimize waste. Eating a healthy diet.

One of the things I like about grocery shopping is practicing mental math, and I calculate price per quantity mentally when choosing between different brands/sizes. It's good mental exercise, and the ability to do that sort of division mentally occasionally is helpful in other contexts.

A lot of them that do mix units between products of the same class (one measured as volume per unit, and another as mass per unit), making it difficult to do a direct comparison.

What do you mean by "it's smaller than the total"? Do they literally write the wrong price or do they choose any unit they happen to think makes for a good sounding price per unit?

In most of Europe (probably all the EU countries at least, unified regulations yay) shops need to put the price per 1kg/100g/1L/100mL on the tags, depending on which is most appropriate for the product.

The physical printing is smaller.

Often much smaller. A few stores like Costco actually print it large enough that you don't have to get up close and squint at each price tag to see the unit price. Usually you can't just scan the shelf and comparison shop on unit price.

Same in Canada. Unit prices are useful for comparisons, but it's hard to avoid the big, colorful "ON SALE" tags.

This absolutely happens. But after a while, manufacturers increase the size & price at the same time, pointing out the increase in product, of course. None of this is new, it's been happening for decades.

It's a documented phenomenon that happens so regularly there's a name for it: shrinkflation.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/24/sweets-are-...

Specifically, Hershey's Chocolate Bars did it to maintain a 5 cent price from 1902 until 1969. By then, the bar shrank to half the size as it used to be, so they doubled the size of the bar and charged 10 cents for it.

Coke was also a nickel for a long time, and since it was frequently sold in vending machines it was advantageous to be able to sell it for a single coin. So they actually lobbied for the production of a 7.5 cent coin.

This is what happened in Ireland when new taxes on sugary drinks came in. Drinks that came in 2L bottles now came in 1.75L bottles at the same price. The diet versions with no sugar remained in 2L bottles. Companies like Coke are now only making variants like vanilla or cherry flavours using their diet or zero sugar products

This is why if you want to tax sweet drinks, you should charge it on artificial sweeteners too because otherwise it’s just a handout for aspartame.

...but that’s the idea. They want people to drink the artificially sweetened version instead. That’s what the tax is for. If they taxed both the same it wouldn’t work.

I think you've missed sight of the point of those taxes, which is to reduce consumption of actual excess sugar, not to tax things that taste sweet.

Both are unhealthy its not clear that fake sweeteners are better for you. Why tax a different kind of unhealthy less?

I'm no fan of artificial sweeteners or sweet things in general but the scientific evidence is pretty overwhelming that most of them are far healthier than sugar.

Non-sugar sweeteners are better for you in at least one significant way: they have almost zero calories.

Because the scientific evidence overwhelmingly shows that artificial sweeteners _are_ better for you. They have no proven health impact and eliminate calories. The idea that they're somehow "just as bad" (or even worse) only comes from sugar and corn industry lobbying and marketing efforts.

Yep. Same thing happened with baked beans and corn chips recently. Shrink the size while offering a small discount (still more expensive per unit weight) and then a little later introduce a new jumbo size for more than the old price.

The one for me was breyer's ice cream. I was working stocking it at the time it happened. They used to show up as 5 packs of 500g cartons. One summer, during a sale, the prices stayed the same, but they started showing up in 4 packs of 450g cartons. I had to rearrange the whole shelf because they didn't fit the same way any more. So this really stuck in my mind. The cost was the same to the store too on the packing slips for a whole pallet. They just gave less and decreased the size of each carton.

I've told a related story from the same time period on here before about how they stopped putting handles on the large 4L ice cream buckets so they could save 1¢ per bucket. That was the same summer.

I also suspect the quality has dropped. It may just be because I'm not too big on sweets, or my palate becoming dull with age, but when I had a bit of Halloween candy recently it all tasted like wax and sugar. Even things that were favorites when I was a kid (Butterfingers and Whoppers in particular) were bland and flavorless compared to what I remembered.

The "fun sized" versions of candy generally given out at Halloween always tasted stale to me, likely due to the production and distribution methods for the holiday. I wouldn't use those to draw conclusions.

More likely they were actually stale, lots of people buy a big stash of candy and hand it out over several years until it runs out.

They were stale, but even freshly purchased ones are often stale. Candy goes stale faster than you'd think, and seasonal candy often sits around longer and is stored with less care than a regular candy bar.

nobody does this. Keeps halloween candy between years? why? there's no advantage to having a "big stash". halloween candy decomposes into empty wrappers naturally anyways. It has a half life of 9 days.

After Halloween specials on candy are amazing. Theoretically, people could just always buy those deals and save them for the next year. That holds for all after season items.

This is a perfect strategy for buying clothes, but candies? nobody stores candies this long :)

If you were buying winter tires sure but Halloween candy is on sale every year and the cost for most homes is negligible so it's unlikely people are stockpiling it

There’s no advantage to a big stash, but it’s easy to overestimate the number of trick-or-treaters, have a ton of candy left on your hands, and just stick it in the closet for next year.

No it's not

They probably are a little more stale than the large bars because many are in the unsealed paper wrappers.

I swear Twix used to be much better. I haven't been meticulously tracking it over the years or anything, but there is a simple logic that if you can cut costs by making something worse, and there's pretty much no higher-quality alternative, it'll probably still sell.

The quality has definitely dropped.

There have been discrete points where I would buy a Reese's peanut butter cup and go "Yuck!". We're currently in such a phase right now where I won't buy them anymore.

I really notice when they tamper with the peanut butter. But there have been a couple of times where they over-sugared the chocolate.

Normally, I would have blown it off as "getting old" except that I mentioned that I wouldn't buy one anymore and two children (14 and 10) agreed that they started sucking that year.

Yeah, peanuts really show the quality difference. Half of the fun size Snickers I’ve gotten the past few years have tasted straight up rancid.

The only one that's as good as I remember from childhood is Kinder eggs. That chocolate is amazing and waaaay better than we deserved as kids. Still get one for xmas every year although could do without the plastic toy.

Funnily enough I've always thought Kinder chocolate was way too sweet (even as a kid) and I remember being flummoxed by the tagline of Kinder ads (in Italy, but that's where they're from), which was "more milk, less cocoa". Kid me was thinking: "wait! Isn't milk way cheaper than and less delicious than cocoa?". But then again it was probably aimed at health conscious parents...

Is cocoa bad for you? It’s the milk and the sugar that are unhealthy, as far as I know.

Cocoa is pretty fat and (at least in Italy) there is a popular belief that it might cause acne.

I think it's also interesting to note that Nutella (also from Ferrero) has a history of being a post-WW2 pure chocolate substitute at a time when hazelnuts were much cheaper and easier to source. It seems to be in the company's DNA to produce chocolate-based confections while touting chocolate as the bad guy.

Cocoa powder is just fat and carbs with basically no other nutritional content but it's not really any worse for you than other sources of the same thing.

The milk is probably the most nutritionally rich thing in your average chocolate bar.

Kinder eggs are European chocolate, aren't they? European chocolate is much higher quality than the American counterpart, so maybe that would explain?

There isn't a European counterpart to American milk chocolate (which mostly tastes like Hershey's) is there? Like, the reason they are different isn't quality, it's that they are different.

Or have you sampled American chocolates that do not try to follow Hershey's flavor and found that they are all inferior?

AFAIK, In Europe the minimum cocoa content for chocolate is 20% while 10% in the US. The US mainstream chocolate handles the lacking cocoa by adding more sugar. Of course you'll find all kinds of boutique chocolates everywhere, but the earlier anecdotes seemed to be about the cheap mainstream stuff.

That's probably just your taste buds dulling with age, I have the same experience, many things I couldn't get enough of as kid now tastes bland (and not just prepackaged food. It's particularly noticable with sweets.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/05/05/526750174/wh...

That's plain inflation: $0.25 in 1975 would be $1.20 today

And yet to a kid wanting a candy bar, it's measurably worse. In the 1980's you would occasionally find a quarter on the ground. Today you never find a dollar on the ground, or even quarters.

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