Shrinkflation in Business

[Kane]

Shrinkflation is a termed created by combining two words shrink and inflation. It indicates that business reduce the weight/size of the product and maintain the same selling price. Most people only look at the price when they buy things. So if the price goes up to, they'll notice. But if the weight goes down a bit, they might not notice. That’s how some companies continue to rule the market. When companies have to decide whether to raise prices or shrink the product, they usually go with making the product smaller.

 

[Riberet19]

Yes, this is something very common in my country, let's take the example of packaged sausages, I remember how some sausages were sold for $1 and offered 10 slices after inflation ran wild, they left the same price but now only offered 6 -7 slices of sausage.

 

[Kane]

In the past, the standard weight for products used to be 100 grams, 200 grams, 500 grams, or 1000 grams. These days the standard weight for products are 85 grams, 190 grams, 450 grams, 960 grams. When the companies reduce weight, consumers usually do not notice it and will continue to buy it for the same price but with less weight.