by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
How often do you see this. You are at the grocery store in the veggie isle. You are waiting for the person in front of you to finish so you watch her.
She is looking at fresh corn on the cob. They are on sale. 10 ears for £1.20! She is picking up this corn, turning it, peering cautiously into the top like something is going to jump out at her, etc... Then she looks over and sees the prepackaged corn on the cob, looks back at the fresh one in her hand, and tosses it down, grabs the Styrofoam/cellophane wrapped corn and walks off.
This can be rather a shocking experience for the watcher! First of all, that person, like so many people, had no idea as to what she was looking at with, as in this case, the fresh corn, and then they choose the plastic wrapped corn over the no waste corn. I would guess they do this assuming that they think that the packaged corn – or whatever – is of higher quality than the lose one. Often it is not, however.
Aside from that the buyer chose the packaged corn that cost £3.40 for only 4 ears instead of the fresh, unpackaged corn was 10 ears at £1.20 – Doh?
The same is also true with supermarket “own label” goods, such as in the case – and OK, I may do a little advertising here – Sainsbury's (in the UK) “Basics” range or foods. There is, for instance, the canned Chilli Con Carne that is around 70pence now (since the prices all go through the roof) compared to the same size can of Chilli by a leading brand – in this case Princess. Many people will go for the pretty label leading brand believing it to be better quality and therefore, in their eyes, better value. I wonder, however, how many read the label. On the leading brand – and it does so on many leading brands of Chilli – it states “reshaped beef” and anyone who knows how reshaped beef is obtained would not pick that product (I certainly wont). The label on the “Basics” brand reads, on the other hand, “minced beef”. Which one is the better? No contest, for I tried both. The better one in taste, texture, and all is the Sainsbury's “Basics” label Chilli. And the same, I hasten to add, holds true for other such goods from that company. How other “value” brands compare, I cannot tell.
So, often label and packaging and price are more than conceiving and the public gets duped again and again.
© Michael Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
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Grocery Store Stupid Human Tricks
