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Comment by kumarsw | Hacker News Reader

They have been selling for a dollar for 35 years. I'm really curious how their inventory has changed over this period. One 2020 dollar is 40 cents in 1985 dollars, but the cost of consumer goods has decreased significantly since 1985. So I wouldn't be surprised that their package sizes have not changed much.

Related trivia: Between 1886-1959, the price of a bottle of Coke was a nickel [1].

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/11/15/165143816/why-...

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Likely through shrinkflation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation

Next time you’re at the supermarket check if the bacon brands you remember are still a pound. I bet many of them are now 12 ounces.

by charging huge markup on per unit cost by reducing quantity. 3 pills of Tylenol for example for $1 instead of a bottle which may have dozens for $6 . The brands create special mini-sized packages specifically for dollar stores. Big business.

With often same great sized packaging only with smaller amounts inside. Very wasteful. Deodorant, chips, pills, etc all look like a normal sized bottle but in reality is a smaller size for dollar stores. I have also heard things like canned goods of say a brand of soup they have special made for places like Costco that demand higher quality ingredients where the dollar store would get lower quality versions. Perhaps cheaper meat or less of it. Still tastes like the original just that it’s not actually nutritionally the same.

(Not from around there) Costco demands higher quality ingredients? I thought it was a low-end cheap bulk/wholesale place?

Costco is not low-end; it is inexpensive, but that is because its revenue model is near-zero margin on items with its profit derived from membership charges, focuses on large package sizes, etc. Reputation for quality is part of what helps it sell memberships, so its important.

Costco is known for less of a choice, but whatever choice there is you can trust it to be of a higher quality.

When I go to Costco I definitely have my guard down and don’t vet and don’t scrutinize each product as much as i would do at other stores.

Be careful, though; this isn't necessarily the case on costco.com.

For example: https://www.costco.com/theradome-evo-laser-hair-growth-devic...

Low level laser/light therapy has been shown to promote hair growth.

I don’t have a source on that claim I believe I saw it in a video that was discussing the food supply chain. The same is true for some grocery stores. Walmart for example gets low grade fruits and veggies. Where somewhere like a Quality Foods gets higher end stuff graded better. It will be sweeter or Moreno flavourful. It sounds believable but again don’t have a source for you.

This reminds me of an argument I had a few Thanksgivings ago with an aunt who loudly proclaimed that the $0.49 can of black beans from the bargain store is exactly the same as the $3.49 can of black beans from the supermarket.

That could be the case, for black beans. $3.49 for a can of black beans is highway robbery. Beans are among the cheapest foods on the planet.

My local Whole Foods charges $0.89 for a 15oz can.

Your brand name super markets dramatically mark up items that Dollar Stores don’t.

Next time your in your local Hispanic or Asian market, go and see what those same beans cost. It won’t be anywhere near the price of Safeway or Wholefoods.

Also great for someone with an occasional sweet tooth and insufficient willpower to have junk food at the house. Sometimes I just want 4 Oreos and I’ll happily pay a huge per-unit markup to avoid eating the whole box.

ever so often I get that crazy look from the store assistant when they offer me (something like) double what your're buying for a few pence more and I say no thanks - typically I'm holding my belly whilst saying no

Imagine if bartenders offered alcoholics 20% off if they bought two

That’s sorta what happy hour is.

Sometimes beers come in multiple sizes and I’m pretty sure the price grows sub-linearly with volume.

See Sharpie pens, which are sold at dollar stores with less ink.

Which is why I buy mine there. I have never run a Sharpie out of ink but I have lost them or broken them.

That’s exactly why I shop there. No sense paying $5 for 100 tablets that expire when I could spend $1 for 5 tablets that will get used.

>Next time you’re at the supermarket check if the bacon brands you remember are still a pound. I bet many of them are now 12 ounces.

Coffee as well.

It’s been a long time since a “half gallon” of ice cream became 3 pints in size.

And then the inevitable "Now, 30% more!".

Many years ago they went to 1.75 qt across the board. I was mad, but what could I do?

Then they dropped it again to 1.5 qt (3 pints), except for Tillamook. So I bought Tillamook and was happy they were the benevolent company that took a stand against shrinkfla... shit Tillamook is now 1.5 qt as well.

I'm mad again. At least they still use actual ice cream ingredients. I won't punish them for succumbing to the shrink ray. They held out longer than others.

12 ounces is, apparently, 0.75 pounds. It's about 340 grams.

I wish you were always 12 minutes in front of me in comment threads :)

My wife's preferred brand of pre-made iced tea recently slightly changed the packaging for their large-sized bottles. Checked, and sure enough, they dropped from 64oz to about 59oz.

[EDIT] Oh, and in the case of Everything's a Dollar (used to be better than Dollar Tree, dunno if it's still around) and similar: as someone who got a lot of toys there as a kid and has been in a handful of times in the last few years for various things, I can vouch for their toy selection being much better in the '90s.

What are the economics like on prepared drinks? Seems like transporting a bunch of water around is wasteful and expensive. I guess the revenues are so much greater than costs it doesn't matter - but here we have them shrinking the portion size.

The bottling plants for soda etc. tend to be fairly local. Syrup gets shipped further.

in that particular case, it boils down to how many you can fit on a pallet. if you get an extra row or column or both, you're now selling 550 bottles per pallet instead of 500.

When you go to the grocery store now, at least locally, seems that there are more varieties in package sizes of the tiny 7.5 oz cans of coke vs the full size 12 oz cans. If you want the tiny cans a six pack or a full case is available, if you want the large cans you have to get the entire case of 12, no six pack sold. If you convert the price per ounce you get a pretty raw deal on the tiny cans. IIRC the 12 pack was only like a dollar less for the 7.5oz cans vs the 12oz 12 pack.

Those used to be 8oz cans, too, I think.

Dollar Tree sells $1 steak. They are like 3oz

In EU stores have to provide price per kg or another relevant unit.

It's the same in the US.

Globalisation happened, massive economies of scale in manufacturing.

And now globalization has equalized global workforces with purchase and compensation parity. Costs must rise.

Money is to be made on trade and labor cost deltas, but those eventually, almost thermodynamically, equalize.

Comparative advantage is still in effect. It just comes down to stuff like economics of scale, language, local laws, etc rather than simply ultra low wages.

An interesting long term effect of this is there is a second whiplash as stalled first world economies eventually benefit from the world catching up to them.

That's one thing. Also, China is no longer buying US treasuries, which for a long time contributed to reducing US inflation via underpriced imports.

So what are they doing with the extra US dollars now?

Buying oil, I think. And perhaps saving some for Evergrande's rainy day.

Belt and Road Initiative:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

Basically, they're using it to buy American heavy equipment and build infrastructure in developing nations, principally in Africa and Central Asia. They lease the infrastructure back to the host country for cash (i.e. favorable terms of trade), and if the host country defaults, there's a clause that China can take over the infrastructure. They may have similar clauses in case of military action, though in that case, it kinda doesn't matter what the law or contract says.

It's China's version of the petrodollar-for-military-bases system. When you run a trade surplus, use that to build up infrastructure that you can take advantage of in geopolitical conflicts. Colonialism never really went away, it just got more refined.

This also contributes to increasing China's global influence, which means reducing the US's. Proxy economic war, rather than colonialism, imo.

> China's version of the petrodollar-for-military-bases system

What do you mean when you say "petrodollar for military basis system"?

Before you answer, please remember that a petrodollar is the analogue of a eurodollar -- it refers to dollar assets owned by petroleum exporting states, namely OPEC.

I would trust a private inventory and accounting audit of the dollar tree for insight into inflation more than almost any government funded study.

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