“Look at the size of this,” the Missus remarked, “It`s shrunk out of all proportion to what it cost!”
She was right of course. These wily manufacturers, eager to make a fast buck, will slowly shrink the physical size of a commodity without a soul noticing it. (Apart from the Missus that is.)
They say the world is getting smaller. Apparently so is everything else in it. Check out a Marie biscuit, or even a Lemon Cream and you`ll see what I mean. Five years back they were much, much larger.
Pay more and get less is the order of the day in almost every sphere of life, and I think it`s time someone put their foot down with a heavy hand!
What I have noticed too, and I hate to mention the fact, but toilet paper
is another culprit. Check the width that they make that vital piece of soft tissue, it hardly covers what you need it for and is far short of the width of the toilet roll holder which remains the same old six inches.
A term that is regularly used in the retail industry is “Shrinkage”. Nothing to do with that cheap pair of underpants you bought a few years back. The term has a wide range of implications that are absolutely mind boggling, besides influencing a company`s profit margin.
It seems, virtually anything can be attributed to shrinkage. From rotting vegetables to addled eggs. Rats to common thievery, all is placed under a single heading “Shrinkage”
Chatting up a friend in the motor industry the other day, I discovered that size and weight have little effect when it comes to shrinkage for them. The `diff’ of a twenty ton truck, weighing a few hundred Kilo`s can walk out the door as easily as a packet of pins.
So who pays? It is hard to decide, since most retailers deny handing the loss over to the consumer. For my money, which together with everything else has shrunk to obscurity, I think the days of Supermarkets and Hyper Stores are numbered.
I get a better deal from Rosie our street vender. Small business, small shrinkage, and she doesn`t pay for the trolley she trundles either.
