Consumer Ed: Falling Prices?

You've seen the TV commercials, the signs in the stores telling you that prices are falling all the time. Every time you walk into a store and see a sign for another price drop for a box of crackers, your favorite cereal, or whatever it may be, do you ever find yourself wondering if prices are always dropping why isn't it free by now, and why does it cost more now than it did six months ago?

Well, prices aren't actually dropping. Price drops are a deceptive practice to make things seem cheaper than they are. In order to accomplish this the seller artificially inflates the price for a period of time, say anywhere from two to eight weeks, for example. When they have you used to the artificially inflated price then they do a 'price drop' with some kind of tagline like "more savings for you" to make you think they are doing this 'for you', rather than the actual truth is they are baiting you and doing this 'to you'.

To put this into an example, a box of crackers may have been selling for 2.08 two months ago but has been selling for 2.58 for the past two months; long enough for you to forget the price you may have been paying. Now you see a sign advertising it for 2.18 and "even more savings for you, because we care". Well the fact is you're still paying more for it, and the bait with the "because we care" BS accomplishes selling more product than if they just left the price alone, basically because we're just naturally suckers.

This should also give you a clue when to expect price increases. When you see a product selling at a price lower than it has been, even than their special 'price drops', this is an indication that the price is getting ready to go up, or another change is on the horizon like lowering the product weight. They will lower the price to get you to buy it more regularly so you'll be more likely to buy it when the price and/or package changes.

Don't kid yourself into thinking retailers and manufacturers give a damn about you. The only reason why safety features exist is due to government regulations. And sellers and manufacturers aren't out to save you money but to sell more to you by using sucker pitches. If you've ever been privy to the conversations involving terms like "training the customer" and "re-training the customer" you'd certainly have a different perspective about your local superstore.

Consumer Ed: All the Pretty Bread Ties

A common myth that has been spread is that you can tell how fresh a loaf of bread is by the color of its bread tie. This is not actually misinformation spread by the seller but by consumer reporters who are apparently desperate enough for a story they'd report anything.

Here's the simple fact about bread ties and their color scheme: it only means something to the bread driver stocking bread.

Really? You think you can tell how fresh a loaf of bread is by the color of the bread tie? So what does a green tie mean? Well how about a yellow tie? In other words the colors don't mean a thing to you. They are only there so when the driver is delivering bread they know to pull any loaves that have the same color bread tie on them as the bread they are delivering that day in order to keep the bread in rotation.

Want to know the real secret to buying fresher bread? It's a wonderful invention called an expiration date you'll see stamped on a loaf of bread. The later the expiration date, the fresher the bread is. 

For Example: if you see two loaves of bread and one has a date of say Sept 21 and another Sept 22, the loaf with Sept 22 is fresher.

Bread comes into a store with 12 to 13 days on it before the expiration (best by) date and is pulled 5 or 6 days before that date. Bread can last for weeks beyond the expiration date, but it will lose some moisture sitting on the shelf and feel stale, which is why it is pulled when it is, before it reaches that point.

This is not rocket science. People want to feel like they have some kind of inside secret, but some things only exist to expedite service in stores so the vendor can get more done in a shorter amount of time and that saves the company money, and keeps the price down.

But hey, if you want to keep buying bread because you think one bread tie is prettier than another, be my guest, but kindly keep your hands off loaves you're not going to purchase because I know you did not wash your hands before you touched it.