<story><title>Beware of &apos;shrinkflation,&apos; inflation&apos;s devious cousin</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/07/06/1012409112/beware-of-shrinkflation-inflations-devious-cousin</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>HellsMaddy</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been shopping on Instacart a lot during the pandemic and I&amp;#x27;ve noticed a related phenomenon: packaging designed to make products look bigger than they really are, especially in online photos. It&amp;#x27;s not necessarily a new thing, but the online photo aspect is somewhat novel because you don&amp;#x27;t get to see the product in context.&lt;p&gt;For example, a jar of Jalapenos, product photo: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;mprWr6R.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;mprWr6R.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;In reality, the jar&amp;#x27;s cross-section isn&amp;#x27;t circular as it appears, it&amp;#x27;s an ellipse&amp;#x2F;oval: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;dXDUOR9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;dXDUOR9.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Only the first photo was included in the item listing. When the groceries were delivered and I pulled out the jar, I was so surprised by the odd football-like shape that I couldn’t stop laughing for a few minutes at how well they’d fooled me.&lt;p&gt;Another common thing to see is familiar product packaging that is just “scaled down”. Everything about the packaging looks the same or very similar, but smaller - especially fonts. This deceives the eye into believing the product is much larger. I recently fell for this when shopping for some conditioner. The packaging is not exactly the same but close enough to fool me at a glance:&lt;p&gt;What I bought: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MdAuhS0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MdAuhS0.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;What I expected: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MGxdD0d.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MGxdD0d.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m inclined the believe this is on purpose because in real life, the fonts are way too small to read comfortably. If not trying to mislead, I would expect the packaging to be designed to be legible, right?&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s especially frustrating because I usually would&amp;#x27;ve just paid more for the larger size.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>canucker2016</author><text>Not sure if it&amp;#x27;s only in Great Britain where this occurs, but the food manufacturers have taken the acronym WYSIWYG to heart.&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t expect anything more than what is visible in the food packaging.&lt;p&gt;The little plastic window in the packaging shows lots of pepperoni?&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t assume the whole pizza is uniformly covered in pepperoni.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;ll just make an ass out of yourself.&lt;p&gt;see &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dailymail.co.uk&amp;#x2F;femail&amp;#x2F;food&amp;#x2F;article-5274153&amp;#x2F;Photos-misleading-packaging-fools-shoppers.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dailymail.co.uk&amp;#x2F;femail&amp;#x2F;food&amp;#x2F;article-5274153&amp;#x2F;Phot...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve seen pix of sandwiches where the packaging looks like there&amp;#x27;s tons of filling only to reveal that all the fillings have been jammed to the front of the package window.</text></comment>
<story><title>Beware of &apos;shrinkflation,&apos; inflation&apos;s devious cousin</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/07/06/1012409112/beware-of-shrinkflation-inflations-devious-cousin</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>HellsMaddy</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been shopping on Instacart a lot during the pandemic and I&amp;#x27;ve noticed a related phenomenon: packaging designed to make products look bigger than they really are, especially in online photos. It&amp;#x27;s not necessarily a new thing, but the online photo aspect is somewhat novel because you don&amp;#x27;t get to see the product in context.&lt;p&gt;For example, a jar of Jalapenos, product photo: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;mprWr6R.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;mprWr6R.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;In reality, the jar&amp;#x27;s cross-section isn&amp;#x27;t circular as it appears, it&amp;#x27;s an ellipse&amp;#x2F;oval: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;dXDUOR9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;dXDUOR9.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Only the first photo was included in the item listing. When the groceries were delivered and I pulled out the jar, I was so surprised by the odd football-like shape that I couldn’t stop laughing for a few minutes at how well they’d fooled me.&lt;p&gt;Another common thing to see is familiar product packaging that is just “scaled down”. Everything about the packaging looks the same or very similar, but smaller - especially fonts. This deceives the eye into believing the product is much larger. I recently fell for this when shopping for some conditioner. The packaging is not exactly the same but close enough to fool me at a glance:&lt;p&gt;What I bought: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MdAuhS0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MdAuhS0.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;What I expected: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MGxdD0d.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MGxdD0d.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m inclined the believe this is on purpose because in real life, the fonts are way too small to read comfortably. If not trying to mislead, I would expect the packaging to be designed to be legible, right?&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s especially frustrating because I usually would&amp;#x27;ve just paid more for the larger size.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>alister</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;make products look bigger than they really are, especially in online photos&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve noticed that tiny condos and apartments in real estate photos look enormous. I&amp;#x27;m undecided on whether this is a deliberate attempt to mislead or an artifact of having to use a wide angle lens to capture the whole room (but an artifact that the seller and real estate agent like).</text></comment>