I am doing a bit of research on psychological pricing etc.
This is quite an interesting topic to see how retailers entice buyers with different marketing and selling techniques.
Obviously businesses have been hurt with lockdowns all over and the majority are now applying different pricing strategies.
An increasing trend is to change the packaging in such a way that it confuses the buyer e.g a 100g slab of chocolate is reduced to 80g, but the price remains the same. Gradually the price on the new packaging has increased. The consumer's brain still has the old 100g price in her head, but is now effectively paying much, much more!
E.g. If the 100g slab cost R10, and is then reduced to 80g @ R10, the effective price increase is from 10c to 12.5c per gram = 25%.
If the price of the new 80g slab now increase from R10 to R12 (only R2 more than the original 100g slab) the total increase against the old price is 15c per gram. That is a total increase of 50%!!
Retailers make it difficult for their unobservant customers to calculate the price of food in Kg's as they package in portions of 400g , 800g etc.
For semi-literate people and the average consumer this is difficult to understand as not everyone can convert to a price per Kg to compare products.
Therefore consumers should always demand a price per kg to be displayed on the package.
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