I remember when I worked for McDonalds. I got my ass chewed out by management for opening the large fries boxes all the way when filling them. They showed me that you don't push the fry boxes all the way so that it just looks like someone is getting more fries than they actually are. They strictly enforced this rule. So that's another reason you don't get your monies worth buying a larger size fries. The way the management had me not open the fry boxes all the way people were really only getting about a small fries worth of fries while paying extra for the large fries. You may get a few fries extra but NOT that much of a difference. I always thought that was such bullsh!t but they damn sure do that at McDonalds and still do that to this day. Also beware whenever a product, any product says new & improved. That always means you now get less product for your money. It's new and improved for the greedy corporations, not the consumers.
I work at McDonalds and it may vary of course depending on which one you work at but we actually fill our fries properly. I got 1 of each on multiple occasions and every time the Large was about double the amount of a small. And medium (as it should be) was about in between the small and large. But I wouldn’t put it past them that some or even most McDonalds do screw you over on the fries. Just saying mine doesn’t. Or at the very least management doesn’t chew us out. All of my managers are really nice actually. But once again product may vary.
@@obi-wankenobigoat Yeah the one I worked at in Kississimmee Florida near Disney they jumped all over me about opening the fry boxes all the way up. So I guess it depends on the McDonalds store you go to
You should also remember that McDonalds is a franchise so each individual restaurant have their own sets of rules from the manager. This is why management is different from restaurant to restaurant. You might be working with a shady manager who give less product so they can pocket more money or a super nice manager who give out food if there are leftovers at the end of the day.
There’s one tactic I’ve noticed that annoys the absolute crap out of me. I bet everybody has had this experience. You’re watching something on TV. It’s at a reasonable volume right? Then the commercials come on, and suddenly your TV is blaring! I bet that’s to get people to pay more attention to the commercials. Although I don’t know just exactly how effective that strategy is.
could also be a setting. something like "automatic volume adjustment", it's usually on by deafult. if it's on the ads will be blarin, turn it off and everything stays at the same volume.
Commercials were already louder than shows, at least as far back as the ‘60s when I was a kid. Advertisers knew that viewers were likely to step into the kitchen or go to the bathroom during commercials. They wanted their ads to be heard. People were complaining about it even then.
Music has more energy than regular human sound. Commercials are music in the background and human sound in the foreground. So naturally they pack much more energy than normal sound.
Shrink-flation is more obvious in France because it's mandatory for grocery shops to print to price per kg or liter on the barre code so it's super easy to compare prices, no matter the quantity in the item itself
Same here in Quebec. We have the prices marked with a sticker on the shelf but underneath the regular price tag, there’s an amount per 100g to compare with other products. (ex : 0.10$ per 100g)
This is good but there are still sneaky companies- Like a salsa company watered down their salsa so they dont have to decrease the size and we know this because the calorie per serving went down (without the amount per serving going down) and having "water" listed as the first ingredient
@@SaraLilyRose most people are too stupid to have the patience to actually read them, but this is nothing new, it's been happening since the 60's and it's becoming more frequent.
I have an insidious one for you. It's called "Priming." A great example of it is grocery stores that have their floral departments right as you enter the building. What's been discovered is if someone sees or smells fresh cut flowers, for the next 30 mins or so, they'll be "biased" to think everything is fresher than it actually is. So, grocers will put the flowers right when you enter, and have their produce and meats right after. That way, even if the meats, fruits, and veggies are a little "off looking," you'll still be influenced to think they're actually better than they are. Creepy. But it's been used against customers for decades.
My store has 2 entryways, 1 by produce with a Dunkin's and bakery on left of door floral to the right, the other door is self check out random cases of beverages & snacks frozen up ahead 'beauty products' seeing Dr Squatch on shelf smell like all the other soaps because if they are in the same tote before placed on the shelf and the ads state even the mailman will be jealous,I'm the guy if I have to get dish soap or laundry detergent find out what kind and enter the end closest to the product hold my breath and run, grab and run back, quickest isle I'd work in if forced to but pet is my extra I've got pasta/sauces canned veg and foreign food [rice, tacos, soy sauce get a giggle every time I see spotted dick, or cock soup, lately POMEGRANATE MOLASSES due to Shelby Shawarma vids and they say mayo is a sin like ketchup but the garlic sauce is just garlic MAYO!
8:03 - Hey, it’s shrinkflation! That one I _have_ heard about before watching this video. Funnily enough, the Pringles that you showed earlier refuse to do that! They even say right on the tube that there’s “Nothing half-full in _this_ tube!” And it shows: I’ve never bought a tube of Pringles that isn’t completely filled to the top, even with shrinkflation on the rise! This comment is not sponsored by Pringles. I have no connection to them whatsoever besides buying their chips from time to time, and I thought I’d just give them some compliments on _actually_ being better than the competition!
I haven't watched cable television since moving out of my parent's house. The idea of paying for a service only to be sold advertising, never made sense to me.
Same here. Almost three decades of living without TV. I've always considered that 20 minutes of advertising for 40 minutes of program was a terrible yield.
@20:00 about the bag of air. While in a grocery store, I picked up a bag of Doritos but I noticed it was lighter than others of the same size. I went to the fruit and veggies section (where you can weight the products) and actually weighted the bag. The bag read "12oz" but the weight read "6oz" ( I have the picture), now THAT was a bag full of air. Tip: if you think a bag or any box weight less than it reads, go weight it yourself or just don't buy it.
@@djp411 Uh, it actually says the opposite, products like potato chips are sold by weight and not volume. The weights are usually quite accurate for things like Doritos (there could be serious consequences for misrepresenting the actual weight of the product), but occasionally a "defective" bag will slip through and make it into the wild. No manufacturing or quality assurance process is perfect.
@@megachonk9440 _"but occasionally a "defective" bag will slip through and make it into the wild."_ Here in the Netherlands, those lots often make it to our version of the 'Dollar store', I believe. Those, misprints or stray shipments (localized for countries on the other end of europe). It's kinda fun, reading the back of chocolate bars in Lithuanian.
those fruit measuring scales are not nearly accurate should have gone to the butcher counter and weighed it i doubt the fruit scales are even corrected once in their life even after years of use even my dialysis center has two electronic scales and sometimes one is .01 kg off from the other
I am 82 years old and I started noticing some of these tactics when I was in my twenties. Dial soap kept changing the shape and weight of their soap bars WAY back. Women's clothing sizes were changing then as well. The one thing that I wasn't aware of was the speeding up of TV shows, although I did notice the number of commercials increasing. I timed one hour long show, and found that actual show time was only
Hi Carol, Do you have any other tips or wise life tales to divulge please.....I just watched way of the house husband and I'm all about becoming a master of life and thinking outside of the box. SiDDERZzz
@@ilumasytum I believe you have to elaborate on the reply of just "what". It's quite a vague thing to put. I mean it's just one word. If you were asking what about my reply to carol if she had any more interesting things or tips for improving then it basically meant pretty much how it was written.
I'm 70 now. Way back in high school, during my freshman year, it was mandatory reading of Vance Packard, about how corrupt the advertising industry is, and how well it works on humans. They spend billions to take our billions and it works like Slick50. One way I've used in the past, I've raised 6 kids (his, mine and ours), is to MUTE the tv when commercials are on! Faithfully! And now to this day, my kids HATE commercials! I was never bugged to buy certain products by the kids, I was never influenced to buy a certain product, I know how stores operate and shop accordingly. And if someone is slow with muting now, somebody is screaming "Mute the commercials already!" And, I noticed more commercials have been added! They have gone nuts! BUT......hit that mute button: it's like you get woke up from a coma! Thanks for the video! Very informative!
The store layout change actually deters me from going back; Especially Target. Because it’s so chaotic with the cramming of clothing, incredible size fluctuations between which isle you’re in , it becomes too overwhelming unless you have the ability to see what idle things are in on the app, like Walmart has- it helps truly speed things up by creating a list-looking at the app in the location you’re going to shop at and beside each item write down the isle it shows or general area in the store ..with headphones in and that in mind- it does lessen my time there. May not work for every store or person but I am happy to hear that it’s done on purpose so I can “beat the system “ 😂
I find it funny that these stores used these tactics for so long that people literally prefer to shop online just to avoid the overwhelm. Then they complain that no one shops in stores anymore. lol...
Yeah it is bad enough that cartoons these days give kids a constant shot of dopamine with something happening every second. Kids these days have become too impatient for slow scenes. If something doesn't happen for 2 seconds they get bored. A movie like the Fox and the Hound would never make it today. Heck I showed Disney's Junglebook (the original) to a group of kindergarteners, and 10 seconds in where the movies is just music and still frames of the jungle at night, they already started losing patience. Asking "Is this all?" and "When does it start?"
In my state IT department, I always applied "The Scotty Principal", like engineer Mr. Scott on Star Trek.... always pad out time estimates for projects. Seldom turn in the project early, or the bosses will catch on. But if a problem occurs, I have time to complete it before the deadline.
as a diabetic i can confirm when it says "low fat" it's usually high in sugar! i learned that wihle shopping for low sugar products, when i started looking deeper at the other ingredients. low fat means more sugar, or low sugar means more fat, it always balances out with something else
They are PURPOSELY putting in more sugar , cause they are in cahoots with the pharmaceuticals. They get you hooked on sweeteners and then you become a diabetic. You go to the doctor's who's also in on the game, he issues diabetic crap. They dont give a foook about your health, that's why they put corn syrup sweetener instead of natural sugar. Corn sweetener is dirt cheap, but fooks up your health. Dam bastards
i was diabetic ... made a commitment to cut sugar to near 0% and 3 years down the lane i cut carb to 10%. i eat fat, meat, lotsa vegetables, eggs, fresh milk and products ... now I am free of medication .... talk to your doctor. Don't ever buy industrialized food ....
This was the most truthful thing ever. I thought he would mention that everyone in the world has 99 cents at the end of every price to make it seem less expensive, but I suppose it is so common he didn't need to.
That actually started out as a way to keep cashiers honest. It forced them to ring up the sale to open the drawer and make change, so it was at least harder to pocket the money and not record the sale.
IKEA does the same thing. it is intentionally designed like a maze so that people have to walk around the whole shopping mall when they want to leave. The entire process takes up to 2 hours even if you don't stop to look at anything.
Ikea is easy, just walk back to front, use the shortcuts. When I need to pick something up inside the store, I am out in 5 minutes. You can also enter between cash registers. There is a special path for this. People also just go to the closest line at ikea. Not the shortest, the closest. Even if that's the self checkout, that's weirdly slower, even there are 4 scanners instead of one. In supermarkets people actually use the shortest line and self checkout is actually faster. Weird how this differs.
I don't know about you, but personally when I do go to IKEA I go there just to look around bc it's fun. You rarely need a whole new set of furniture anyways. Never been to one that big though.
I went to an Ikea ONCE to look for a new computer desk. Took almost a fricking hour (not joking) to get through the maze of furniture displays before finally coming to the large warehouse looking room, then another 10 minutes just to find the desk. And less than a year later, it already looked horrible due to the 'wood grain paint' having peeled off half of it, and the support bar on the back broken. Yeah, never going to that hellhole again.
My red flag on groceries is when I see something like "gluten free" on a food that would never have gluten. When they act like I'm stupid I wonder what else they would pull. Also, when I find out a health food like a nutrient supplement has artificial sugar but doesn't expressly state it I feel lied to. I would prefer to have natural fat and carbs than take in chemicals that I don't trust and only find out when I get home because I couldn't read the fine print.
Well, to be fair, the "gluten free" tag is still extremely useful for those with gluten allergies/sensitivities(Not talking about the fad diet). There are a lot of products out there that appear to have nothing with gluten, but may actually have been produced in a facility that allowed for cross contamination. For people that are extremely sensitive, even a trace amount might cause a reaction that could lead to internal bleeding. I don't have the allergy, but my mother does, and you really don't realize how useful that label is until you have to make sure that just about everything has it or you have to tediously double check with a chart/forums online. While you still can't 100% trust labels because of poor regulations, that little label does have a purpose other than just tricking you. Some examples of not always gluten free products that seem gluten free are some cheese sauces and some flavors of Fritos. If they don't have the label, then they probably weren't on the specifically gluten free factory line.
yeah, my dad and I often joked about that. "Oh sorry dad, we have to stop buying peanut butter. It's now gluten free. So is the salsa." Yeah, the salsa and peanut butter jars both really said 'gluten free' on them
One more thing: the "small font" on sale items. A bigger trick stores use is the higher "scratched off" price. Here's an example I saw: There was a big screen TV I wanted that was on sale for $499. Sitting next to them in the store were "$1200 reduced to $599" TVs. There were no significant differences between these 2 sets. It made the $599 TV seem like a better bargain, but it was all a trick.
I'm surprised price cuts weren't mentioned in the video. I see this during Black Friday a lot, where a company normally sells a product for $50, marks the price up (maybe the original MSRP?) to say $75, and then stamps a price cut of 33% on it. Man! 33% off! Huge savings, I gotta buy this! While this isn't really a secret, it's still a conniving practice.
When I worked at a Hardware store back in 1972, the Boss had a 25% off paint SALE on Saturday. He and I spent all Friday night jacking up the prices by 25%
💯% true, 💯% agreed. It's more subtle on lesser items like electric pressure washers, micro 'fridges, blankets, comforters, & other things in that price range, isn't it? The obvious examples are when new car dealers advertise ridiculous discounts that you know are just vaporous stupidity: *"$10,000 OFF MSRP! !"* Or, *"SAVE SAVE SAVE! SELLING AT $2,000 UNDER DEALER'S INVOICE! ! !"* I would like to think that _ANYONE_ over the age of 25 who's been in the working world awhile & has shopped for a new car more than just once can see right through such gimmickry. Because no car manufacturer in their right mind is going to set a price for any new car that's _ten thousand dollars_ over & above fair market value, which is determined by the natural market force of what people are actually willing to pay for that particular car. Anyone with half a brain knows how quickly that manufacturer's competitors would exploit such an inflated price, & they wouldn't be able to sell very many chevy cavaliers at that price (a hypothetical example) when all a new car buyer has to do is opt for a ford focus or a dodge neon for $10,000 less than that cavalier Additionally, even in the worst of economic times, _NO CAR MANUFACTURER_ has ever given it's dealers an internal rebate or discount in even the $1,000 range. How much less likely at $2,000 off! That's a historic fact, Jack!
Everything is that way. When I was a kid a Snickers bar was as big as a king size one now and it cost 16 cents. Ice cream used to be a half gallon, now its 54 or 48 ounces. And it goes on and on!
Exactly, when I noticed the Snickers shrinkage about 15 yrs ago, I'd called them on it & their customer service said that Snickers hasn't changed all these years. Lies! My childhood Snickers had a good balance of layers, now I struggle to see the caramel or peanuts.
Nice video! Certain things are applicable to - this place - as well. Examples: - Anything YT does to keep you watching, by feeding you with suggestions for videos that might interest you, based on all your earlier history (not by definition bad though, but just). - Using the power of repetition: Continuesly asking people to sign up for the premium version, even after keeping dismissing the prompt (annoying). - Secretly messing with settings: Intentionally re-enabling Autoplay once in a while where I dissabled it (hard to realy prove it as being intentional, but a suspicion by me, annoying). 16:37 Note that discount percentages are often printed bigger, while prices are small indeed. With this explanation it feels a bit easier to understand. Also worth to add that with the most expensive products in this world, prices are often not shown at all.
This was actually a really good list. I knew about or suspected a handful, but didn't know the full extent of it. Can't say I'm surprised, though. At the end of the day, it's always about maximizing profits. Never forget that!
I was going to comment on this but, you’ve said everything I wanted to say. I was familiar with a chunk of them. But the thing about mirrors with the Australia lady that surprised me. Not a lot, but enough to raise my eyebrows
The psychological trick used by "The Economist" was the "anchoring effect". It is how we are develop biases based on the first perceived information. Earlier when there existed only two options, people opted for the cheaper one but when the dummy option was introduced, people were predisposed to judge the next option (print and web) after considering the false one (just print). It also a common strategy in retail where higher prices are mentioned on the tag at the top and then striked out and a lesser "cheaper" price is shown. We tend to compare "discount" price to falsely mentioned tag price. It is also seen in online shopping sites.
That was THE one that got me. I immediately thought the web and print was the best buy. But if I were an actual potential customer, I would probably have noticed the horrible deal the print only option was and that would have sent up warning flags. At least I'd like to believe that.
Re-arranging store layouts is a big peeve of mine. But I am the get in-get it-and get out type and don't pay attention to items I'm not interested in while searching for what I went for.
I end up getting giving up trying to find stuff and leave half without getting half of what I wanted.. So for me, I spend LESS becuase I cant find anything and go elsewhere!
These sorts of tactics only further keep me shopping online. It's incredible that these companies are only shoving their customers into going elsewhere and seem completely oblivious. In a day when brick and morter stores are closing left and right, you'd think they would realize forcing customers into an uncomfortable shopping experience is, shall we say, counter-productive.
@@sheepriderkiller1181 Kind of. A lot of progress indicators (bar, percentage, etc.) can also have an animated "processing" indicator. Microsoft updates have I think 6 dots that appear from nowhere, go around in a circle twice, and disappear where they reappeared, and then repeat. The rainbow wheel on Apple products (is that even still around?), and so on. If it's not meant to be a lengthy process (such as starting a program), often just the animation is enough to let the user know that it's working and not frozen. Similarly, video games can often use intros that require minimal resources to run while the game itself is loading in the background; if it's just a simple menu UI, more detailed intros can be buffered and usually can be immediately skipped, whereas if it is going to drop you into an interactive hub after the intro, it will sometimes be a simple slideshow, and may have voice lines and subtitles, and it will need some time before it lets you skip it; sometimes there can be another loading screen that is simply connecting you to a live server that is hosting multiple players on the same instance of the hub. The only example off the top of my head of the latter, is The Cycle: Frontier, where it uses voice lines to explain the game's setting, and a slideshow of pictures to emphasize that setting; there's of course an indicator with various dots spinning around in a circle, but you can't always immediately skip the intro unless you have a lightning fast computer, and then when you do, you hit an actual loading screen showing promotional art for the game's current season. When you fully drop in, you're on a space station that is a live server, containing several other players that have also just connected or have finished a session of gameplay. Essentially, this kind of "trickery" is more of an accommodation of expectations than anything else.
I cancelled any cable or as a fact any TV in my home in 2006 when we renovated our flat. Since than, i am only watching series in my laptop if i decide to, freeing up a lot of my time (and brain power) to do more important things with my life ... In 2006 my girlfriend asked me which kind of TV we would like to have in our living room. I asked back, well, what time you actually watched a TV? Could not remember. So we decided to scrap the idea to buy a TV in 2006 ... Best decision ever.
You could always buy a TV and use it as a monitor for your laptop, tablet, or computer, that's what I did anyway! I too never watched cable TV anymore and would spend the majority of my time at home on my laptop, but I missed having a big TV screen to watch movies on.. I had thought about buying a newer smart TV because all I watched was youtube, but i didn't like how you could only use one app at a time, or how apps like youtube don't show the comment section etc. sooooooo, I went to BestBuy and bought two 50 inch Insignia TV's and I hooked my Surface Pro tablet up to one in my living room via an HDMI cable, and the other in my bedroom up to my laptop also via HDMI cable, and I just post up on the couch, or in my bed with a wireless keyboard and mouse using them as a monitor! (; I can literally watch youtube, netflix, even cable tv, and still check work, email, browse Facebook or instagram, and shop on Amazon all at the same time and I absolutely LOVE having a set up like this in both rooms! Anyway, I just thought I'd toss an idea your way so you can enjoy watching your series, or being on your laptop a little more conveniently. :)
There is a local donut shop where if you order a donut , they always put a plate of 7 different flavored donuts in front of you They will only charge for the one you took in your plate. However this instantly urges any customer to take more than 1 coz they are super delicious and as they are readily available in front of them , they do not give any second thoughts before taking another. Now your mouth is dry so they intentionally will offer you coffee and as you had the donuts , you will definitely crave for some and you take one sip of coffee. And there you go , that shop legally took more money from you than what you originally intended to spent. Now if the bill is like $8.50 and you give a $10 bill they will intentionally give you coins in change so that when you tip , you unknowingly tip them more because its in our nature to avoid large number of coins while we are outside
When I go into a store to buy donuts, I go in with the intent to ONLY get 1 doz. to take home. At home I ration myself to two (or just one if they are large enough) per day until gone. I do the same when I buy chocolate but it's a bit harder to ration my chocolate. ;-) As for coffee, I hate coffee & will only drink it if it's cold & I'm tired of hot tea or cocoa. But even then only one cup because, as I hate the taste so much, I end up having to use too much sugar & cream to make it palatable. As for coins, I just save those to use at the stores that say they're 'short' on change. But more often than not, I will use a debit card and just round up when I balance my checking register/account. All the 'extra' cents get put into a column called 'float' to be saved up until I have $20 or $30 to transfer to savings. Or be used for something I budgeted for, which ends up costing a bit more than I expected to pay.
Man everybody noticed. We all noticed that they were making the item smaller. Then they started making the excuse that it was for health reasons. Now they have portion sizes. They also change the recipes of drinks.
Ah, now I know why. I thought it's just me getting older. I'm gonna go 18 for a few months now. And I'm anxious at being adult. Seeing these things(the videos and things about facts) just makes me go cray cray. Like really, I thought chocolates or anything just get smaller because I get bigger. These just makes me want to study accounting more which I don't have passion about. Guilt tripping me that I need to do this before pleasure.
Amazing how many videos this channel has. This is my favorite channel and I keep expecting to run out of content, but nope still digging. Thanks for all the entertainment.
Lengthening processes is also a cost cutting measure. You would think that a company wouldn't slow down its own employees, but I had to implement that feature to avoid wasting more time and resources. In one company, I rewrote a process which took 30 minutes and failed from time to time to generate all required numbers. So, the employee had to wait about 30 minutes AND check that the generation happened correctly. Couldn't believe that did even happen, so I reviewed the implementation and it was a facepalm moment. The web fronted literally sent hundred of thousand request to a back-end, so the server just ignored some of the requests and the browser limited the number of simultaneous requests too! That's why it took so much time and didn't generate all numbers. So, I rewrote the back-end so everything happens at the database level, all the back-end did was to receive the number of numbers to generate and return OK. It took few milliseconds to be successful 100% of the time. Deployed it, then saw millions of numbers being generated, asked the employee why there were so much generation happening and he replied that it didn't work. Then he proceeded to show me that it didn't do anything and just shown the "done" message. Told him that it was that fast, but he clearly showed distrust. So, I deployed another version which faked a 30 seconds progress bar and voilà, all complaints gone...until I left and they reverted back to the old generation because nobody knew how to maintain PL/SQL and if there was a change to be done, they wouldn't be able to do it! In another company, I shrunk a one week process to about 7 seconds. A lot of distrust happened and it was thoroughly checked as a result. Then I was asked to write a small paper explaining how it work and to prove it. When I submitted the paper, my boss laughed that he didn't understood and neither will the other, but that's what they needed. So, I just explained to him what was bayésien inference and skipped things like vectorisation. So, somewhere, there is a paper that is there just to say "yup, it works" ^^ And to be fair, when I wrote it, I laughed a bit, knowing that it would fly over the head of most people and that it was just to reassure higher up that the guy who did it knew one thing or two. (Normally, you shove your master diploma to your face, but I have "only" a bachelor degree)
Another thing stores do (especially Walmart) is place items that are frequently sought after towards the middle and back of the store, so you have to pass through other areas (which have slightly less sought after, but attractive items) that might catch your eye to browse/buy
Even here in the Netherlands. Like how our drugstore has the cosmetics in a corner in the back, straight line from the entrance. They make a beeline there, then remember they came for painkillers and tampax. So take the next aisle over, blindly grab tampax mid-sidestep, then straight on to checkout. _But _*_THEN_* a _colorful_ Full Frontal Eyeful of _deodorants and shampoos_ (cleverly tucked in their looping aisle). Then, Finally grab the aspirine mid-step, _only_ to get tempted into a (frankly) tiny "loop 'de perfume" next to checkout. This all in such a tiny store, It's amazing; its just some arrows and meatballs short of being the IKEA Experience.
Another trick stores do is put their preferred items, the ones they want you to buy, at eye level so it's the first thing you see. The less expensive and discounted brands are always placed low on the shelf where you're more likely to overlook them.
I remember when I was a kid the Dorito bags used to be full almost no air, nowadays at least 45% of the bag is just air. What a shame. The only place where “shrinkflation” hasn’t happened is the dollar store.
Actually it has happened at the dollar store for me. I used to be able to buy 20oz name brand drinks but now theyre in 16oz cans for the same (although recently increased) price.
@@anthony21roman No, Dollar Tree detergent increased to $1.25 (along with all their other $1 items) AND the laundry detergent shrank by a whopping 33% too!
I DESPISE commercials enough that I pay for premium TH-cam. What frustrates me with TH-cam is how they'll use any excuse they can to keep creators' money. Especially with true crime. Thanks for throwing in the size tricks clothing companies use because my husband constantly struggles with his weight and one of the biggest issues he's complained about is how the same jeans, same brand and size is a different size than the ones he bought a couple years prior. They STILL pull that crap and I'm going to make a concerted effort to refuse products by dishonest companies. Btw, Wrangler & Lee brand are the jeans I'm talking about so we won't be using theirs anymore and I will make sure they know why
the size thing is difficult to get around. IDK about mens clothing as much since they use actual measurements for pants but for womens clothing it's crazy how much it has changed. Plus things vary so much from different stores it's ridiculous. I have clothes that range from size 18 to 3x that fit. It takes the convenience out of online shopping b/c the size charts are generally for an hour glass shaped person (which I am not) so I have no idea what size to buy most of the time and would spend less time actually driving to the store to try it on that deciphering the size chart and trying to find reviews/pics of people who are similar to my size/shape. It's infuriating actually.
@@BonnieGruesome Same. Adverts drive me crazy especially when around 98% of them hold absolutely no interest for me. I can't imagine going back to watching mainstream commercial TV either. Being told what I can watch & when holds no appeal. And the variety of shows available in each country is dismal in comparison to having the entire world's viewing range at my disposal.
So, when I was going to college for engineering and auto mechanics, I was working at a lube shop. It was just something to pay the bills at the time. I started to notice that different auto manufacturers colored their fluids in different ways. Often times these fluids are the same as their competitors, however the color is different. Making you think that you have to buy that particular manufacturer’s fluids because they are of a certain color. Above and beyond this, the lube shop used an interesting technique. They had a little Lucite panel that had some liquids sealed inside of it. These liquids were claimed to be of fresh origin. And then they had a little dishes in front of those where you could put samples of the fluids from the customers car. So even if the fluid wasn’t bad the color comparison would lead the customer to believe that the fluid was bad. Just because a fluid has changed color a little bit does not mean that it needs to be replaced at that point in time. It was supposedly a way to show them that their fluid was dirty. All fluids get dirty in a machine. That does not mean that they are still not doing their job. So many little tricks in the automotive industry to make you think you need one thing when you need nothing at all.
Same with drug stores. People generally go to a drug store to pick up prescriptions but they put the pharmacy all the way in the back so that you have to pass all the over-priced snacks, batteries, and everything else on your way in and out in the expectation that, if you are sick or caring for someone who is, you'll be reminded that, while the milk or cereal here is obviously more expensive, you won't want to have to leave the house later to go to the store if you run out so, might as well get it while you're there. Grocery stores have bakeries up near the entrance because the smell of of fresh-baked bread or cookies is practically a part of our DNA that takes most of us to a childhood feeling of being safe and relaxed, which tends to make us let our guard down...and buy more. We even have a grocery store near me that has its own barbecue restaurant just inside the entrance (and it is VERY good bbq, too). Coming in from the parking lot, the smell of the wood smoke is mouth-watering! 🤤😋 Once you're aware of these sneaky things, at least you can make a conscious decision of what to buy.
I have another theory why the smaller price tag works. It plays on our sense of finding something that maybe no one else has seen yet. For example: If you are going through a rack of jeans, and find one with a sale price tag on it, the first thing you think of is, "Wow I'm lucky I found this before someone else caught it." We feel we got one over on the next shopper. If there are huge signs showing the same price we may even just ignore it because we see big sale signs all the time. I know I'm guilty of it. If I see a pair of jeans on the rack with a red sale price tag on it, stuck over the regular price, and it's a couple bucks cheaper, I'm always tempted to get them. But if I see a big sale sign, I usually don't pay much attention to it, because they are all over.
I think I've successfully 'programmed' my brain to filter out in-store sale signs, the primary color kind at least. I was in a free local art gallery, when a friend pointed out this set of primary red, yellow and blue printed-sign-like paintings (which apparently was hand-painted). I had looked right at them, past them, over them, like nothing was hanging there. Like my brain somehow replaced each with a placeholder sign. It really took a while to register.
Fact check: Kopiko is actually an Indonesian brand of coffee confectioneries, exported to many countries, including the philipines.. I love them, taste more like toffee.. 😘 Another trick is to name the product as if it sounded like it came from other countries, and we have a lot like those in my country: Sophie Martin Paris Accessories, Paseo Tissue, Lea Jeanes, California Fried chicken, HokaHokaBento Restaurant, Buccheri Shoes, La Fonte Pasta, Equil Water, Terry Palmer Towels etc etc.. and also the reverse too, product names from other countries that sounded like our language will be bought to show our love of local products, but in reality its not local made! Like Bata Shoes 😁
I learned about vanity sizing when I went to university for fashion design. It's where I learned to shop by my measurements and not a size number. I always get the right size the first time even when I shop online. As long as you're honest about your measurements, this works with every label and every store.
Nope! it doesn't. The measurements are for an hour glass shaped person and if you aren't then it's extremely difficult to shop online. If you have a very large or very small bust, a large waist/stomach, very wide or very narrow hips, or a long or short torso, (and a lot of people fall into one of these categories) it makes shopping online really hard unless the item has a bunch of reviews and photos from different people and even then you can see how the same garment will look very different on different body types. Shopping online seems convenient but I'm finding that I spend less time if I can go into the store and try the item on than if I am online deciphering a size chart, looking at the cut and material and trying to find reviews to see how it might look on me, looking at the return policy etc.
I noticed this trickery years ago. Another trick you missed is the transition resizing. They have their product at its usual size and price. They also add a smaller size (perhaps 20% less) at a reduced price ($1 maybe) People want a savings, so they buy the smaller one. The "research department" tells the company the consumer likes the smaller size. They stop producing the larger size but keep the same price as the larger size. We saw that a few times.
All standard ice creams used to be half gallon standard. Then they reduced to 1.75 or even 1.5 quarts - all at the same price. Only Blue Bell still sells the half gallon. Also, at the same time Dollar Tree upped all their prices from $1 to $1.25 they ALSO reduced the size of many items, like their laundry detergent, which shrank a whopping 30%! Also, bleach at Dollar Tree is more diluted than standard grocery store or name brand such as Clorox.
@@stevesteve7815 Yeah, I only shop there for my vacation rentals which I have many. It is good for stocking up on basic supplies to get guests started and that is a case where we are not trying to by large sizes because we supply starter supplies of paper towels, detergents, etc. and the guests replenish themselves when they run out. But yeah, was always nice they were $1 like the store name implies. Very disappointed they raised prices AND used shrinkflation on many items too.
Another trick I saw used when working in retail was the "new bigger packet". True to their word, the packet WAS bigger. The weight of the contents stayed the same.
Call me out for double posting often, but I usually reply to individual parts of a video. The knowledge now that a medium fry is about the same as a small has blown my mind. Rather than spending 12$ on a Bic Mac Meal at McDonalds, I could now just get the sandwich for, I dunno, is it 6$ without the combo? I haven't eaten there in years. Prices and a BUNCH of friends who used to work there have kept me from spending what little I have there. But let's say it is 6$, I can just get a 1$ small soda and a 1$ (if it's still there) small fry? And it's the SAME meal for 8$ that they want 12$ for? "oh but medium drink" My dude, in the early 90's when we were limited to ONE refill, that the employees had to do, okay. (I'm not old, you are!) But now, a small cup with infinite refills is the same as a large. I HAVE BEEN LIED TO!!
u are able to change it just look at the toblerone 9:43 just strike when they change the size and they'll either have to change it back or lose more money than they gain
Similarly like "the Overton window". Wow, we manipulated our whole lives. More than 30 years ago I saw the size of pastries that my company sold get smaller but the box did not, and they kept the same price.
I have been watching commercials since the late 60s. I'm full. Commercials do not influence me at all. Lucky for me we were poor, so we never bought things that we advertised. Today commercials mean nothing to me but a waste of time. Plus considering the billions I've watched (I was raised by TV), I should get a free pass and not have to watch them anymore. Thank you ad blocker, I love my ad blocker. Great video, Amazing.
19:36 it’s true, I guess,watch Food Theory’s shrinkflation vid if u want to know more, more air makes them break more, too little air also makes them break
Shrinkflation is an old concept. Potato chips, candy bars, breakfast cereal, cookies, meat, and one of the worst being coffee. Amounts dropped as prices climbed.
Funnily enough, I'm the exact opposite of that last brainwashing concept. My mum loved having coconut related foods prior, but when I was born I hated coconut related foods. To this day too! 🤣
Regarding advertising, TH-cam has got to be the worst. Google is making so much from the adds but only passing a fraction on to the creators. Personally if I see and add I refuse point blank to ever use that product.
Shrinkflation pisses me off way more then raising the price. Changing to cheaper ingredients to keep the price the same is also a terrible practice. Kraft Mac and cheese is a perfect example of this. I used to love it but now it quite literally tastes like cardboard due to a change in ingredients.
Same is true for various breakfast cereals. I now hate the taste of certain cereals I used to love. Honeycomb, for example. (Does that even exist now? I haven't seen Alpha-bits lately either.)
21:29 Most of the time when you uncheck those selected and you try to submit you will get a message saying that you have to select everything and you are forced to go to settings on your device and allow it as if you would have had to do in the beginning. This goes well beyond food in grocery stores shrinking the amount of food and other products. There are things such as teflon pans vs cast iron pans but even tho cast iron pans are more expensive most people go for the cheaper option which is not as healthy for you. I look at both the price and size. TP and paper towels can be misleading. The size of the sheets and the length can be duped so you think that you are getting more for your price paid but that is not always true. They can change the size of the sheets and add more sheets but this can be botched by the paper being thinner and when it comes to one roll being like 5 regular rolls that is a blatant lie. You name it, it is smoke and mirrors.
22:50 I am a Filipino and I admit that I am addicted to coffee from the day I first started drinking it and ate some coffee candies. So, yep. The addiction MAY HAVE rooted from Grandma's little convenience store where Grandpa, a taxicab driver at that time (early '90s), used to drink coffee and eat some coffee candies whenever he's on break or whenever his shift is over. I sincerely think that while mom was pregnant with me, I always have heard "coffee" more than 7 times a day. 😅
I haven't owned a TV for years. Everything comes in to the computer! Plus, I play games about 10x more often than watch anything, given the unutterable crap that a lot of places stream.
Im at the point I see ads so much I refuse to spend money on anything that shoves an ad in my face and interrupts my music and videos. They make me so mad now that I refuse to spend my money on a company that has no respect for people. I will spend more and go out of my way to find what i need in order to not support ads.
But then again there is the concept of priming. The reason why a lot of these ads don’t actually sell something in particular because they are showcasing their brand to promote recall.
I LOVE be amazed. I learn so much and it always cheers up my day. It's a great break from the crazy world we live in. Btw I love the narrator of the videos, the cartoons and the music. I wouldn't change a thing!
4:00 I love places like malls and casinos. Even if I don't buy anything or play, I like the exploration. Just walking around and finding mysterious hallways and stuff. I would love to try a real Labyrinth.
It is a shame that they have to be pushed back by bigger corporations, our town used to be all mom and pop, small-town stores, but they have been going out of business lately, but at least people are fighting the addition of chain restaurants and shopping centers. I wish this video would not have to be a thing.
I like how he asks whether we're fed up with TV advertisements, then requests that we add a comment to share our opinion. He's secretly tricking his viewers to increase the comment count on his video by asking for opinions about something everybody finds annoying. Well played!
13:40 I don't watch TV, and... sorry BE AMAZED, I use Adblock too. Hey when you watch as much youtube a day as I do, having 3 x 1-2 ads per video is enough to drive a man insane. My watch-time will have to be enough for you guys. I mean I finally had enough when I binged a 15 min x 50 part let's play of Uncharted, where not only was it the SAME bloody ad I got every time... I got it 3 times per bloody video. Meaning the same ad played in 5 min intervals.
The change in clothing size numbers right now is making me want to not buy things any more and when the clothes I have are unwearable, I just want to go with the "birthday suit". Yeah... I really do feel like not buying clothes anymore with size changes and the different brands marking their sizes differently than each other.
Kudos to you! I have bitched about this very thing for years to the point of my friends accusing me of being a conspiracy theorist..but hey..just because you think people are out to get you, doesn't mean they aren't, am I right? huh?
2:15 This LITERALLY happened to me three weeks ago when I updated my X-Box One 1540 Console. You know, the one with the USB-A port on the side, literally the first X-Box One console Microsoft EVER made. Yeah, the original. I had to unplug and restart it SEVEN TIMES until it finally gave me the results that I was waiting for. But it was worth it, because I think the update also updated the API that takes advantage of the hardware, and loading times have greatly decreased. And performance, Increased. Pretty good for a nine year old X-Box One!
I disabled my cable years ago and just pay for a basic internet package. Saves a bundle. Now a days cable companies let you pretty much watch everything on their website for a fraction of the price. So long as you can get to it before they remove it from the site.
Yeah, [that one supermarket] has a long line of products supposed to loop you around at least a third of the things until you get to pay, but when I only have a few bottles to bring back, I just walk through the open gates of the cash registers where there are no cashiers
I hate that stores have no windows it makes me feel closed into a shop anymore stressed so costermers with disabilitys just walk straight out so theyare actually losing money
0:50 in my personal opinion, I don’t blame those company if too many people doubt them, it’s all thanks to society’s expectations of how things should only look like ONE WAY RIGHT. They can’t accept facts that it only takes seconds for those updates. So to avoid any explosive dramas, they’ve decided those actions. Either ways they’ll be judged IF YOU COME TO LOOK CLOSER, they just prevented dramas from people who doesn’t trust the SHORTER process.
2:23 There's a fix for this: write down and remember what size clothing you wear so next time you shop, you know what you're looking for and waste less time. I do it all the time with t shirts.
Yes I’ve become very impatient, as well. It’s too many people in the way just browsing mindlessly while I just want to get in and out, already knowing what I need but waiting for others to make a decision and move out of the way.
Lately I’ve seen the packages shrink and the prices going way up. I bought some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for the first time in a while and I was shocked how small the cups have gotten and they cost more too. It’s ridiculous. Honestly I haven’t seen one product in the store that hasn’t went up at least a few cents. Some have increased several dollars. It’s getting really scary out there.
you're right, the butter cups have shrunk! I was eating one the other week and thought maybe my brain was playing tricks on me. even the Resses single wraped shapes for the holidays have become smaller now that I remember.
have you heared about pandemy? every thing is more expensive now doesnt matter how package looks theres price for product that only matters. if you think you are scammed gl in court somehow nobody tried
I do not watch television because of the advertising. I try to keep my home as much of an ad-free place as much as possible, as it is so good for mental health. I block ads on my web browsers so I can't see them. I pay to not see them.
for that tv ad one, I think it's a good idea because it also lets viewers have more breaks to get snacks grab stuff etc. and combats shrinking attention spans. for example, occasionally I'll start watching a video and be enjoying it then i catch sight of something in my recommended or pause to get a drink or something and suddenly that video that I was so interested in before is too long and can't hold my attention anymore. At that point the only ways I've found work to finish are 1. set it to 1.25 speed and force my full attention onto it(full engagement) 2.take a break or 3. swap to something else then go back to it after.
*I noticed many of these sneaky tactics while working at a department store back in the early 2000's. But the store manager had no "bolas" when it came to angry customers wanting something for nothing (like customers returning year old+ shoes, or dirty used clothing) and he would subsequently fully refund cash to them. All they had to do was demand "corporate's number"🙄🙄 That particular store went belly-up around 2007.*
I think shrinkflation is a pain in the ass. I'm middle aged and I've been noticing more and more how even my favorite candy bars keep on getting so smaller. This is why we didn't want small businesses to go away and to keep them around to compete with the big companies. Now they have all the freedom they want to gouge every little last penny out of our pocket. Like the crows on the movie The wiz said to Michael Jackson as the scarecrow, this is your life buddy all hung up get used to it.
When i hear Humanizing personal items My first thought is naming your guns that you always use in a fight (let's just hope that "always" is in a war, not just random homicide)
@5:24 Does Walmart also tell their employees to avoid helping customers so that the customer has to find the item by wandering around, or are they just crappy employees?
When products reduce in size,quantity, and/or volume while leaving the price the same, the next step is increasing the prices. THEN, when they make the product bigger again, say, 20% more free, as an example, we feel like we're getting a better deal. But it's not.
1:46 I think that's kind of funny that it builds trust because most people's issues with phones and computers and everything is how long it takes for them to load and if it takes less than a second I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person that would be really really happy about that as long as the product did exactly what I was supposed to do afterwards
Here are few you missed: - Putting fresh(er) stuff behind the less fresh stuff in an aisle - Putting expensive stuff in the eye level and hand level aisles while putting cheaper one in the foot level or overhead aisles. - Shops want to increase prices? They start a discount first. They they replace the old "old" price with the new "old" price. Or simply leave the "old" price out. Once the customers forget what the old price used to be, they are free to put the inflated price without too much backlash from the customers. - Discounted items are often placed next to expensive stuff in hopes for "I saved money for that stuff, I deserve a treat" kind of thought in some of their customers. They also like to vary the location of the discounted stuff or place the same discounted stuff at multiple locations for the same reason.
One of my favorite stupid designs for food sales was when a few years ago it became a trend to make mini versions of everything. It was sold as a way to have smaller bit sizes when in reality it was just MUCH less product for even more money. And all this came to a hilarious point when they started selling Maxi mini versions.......which were pretty much just normal sized versions they could sell for more because they were special. You gotta almost hand it to them when it comes to how creative they are at scmaming people.
I remember when I worked for McDonalds. I got my ass chewed out by management for opening the large fries boxes all the way when filling them. They showed me that you don't push the fry boxes all the way so that it just looks like someone is getting more fries than they actually are. They strictly enforced this rule. So that's another reason you don't get your monies worth buying a larger size fries. The way the management had me not open the fry boxes all the way people were really only getting about a small fries worth of fries while paying extra for the large fries. You may get a few fries extra but NOT that much of a difference. I always thought that was such bullsh!t but they damn sure do that at McDonalds and still do that to this day. Also beware whenever a product, any product says new & improved. That always means you now get less product for your money. It's new and improved for the greedy corporations, not the consumers.
woah, that's pretty shady! thanks for sharing
I work at McDonalds and it may vary of course depending on which one you work at but we actually fill our fries properly. I got 1 of each on multiple occasions and every time the Large was about double the amount of a small. And medium (as it should be) was about in between the small and large. But I wouldn’t put it past them that some or even most McDonalds do screw you over on the fries. Just saying mine doesn’t. Or at the very least management doesn’t chew us out. All of my managers are really nice actually. But once again product may vary.
@@obi-wankenobigoat Yeah the one I worked at in Kississimmee Florida near Disney they jumped all over me about opening the fry boxes all the way up. So I guess it depends on the McDonalds store you go to
You should also remember that McDonalds is a franchise so each individual restaurant have their own sets of rules from the manager. This is why management is different from restaurant to restaurant. You might be working with a shady manager who give less product so they can pocket more money or a super nice manager who give out food if there are leftovers at the end of the day.
@@Oyamada13 yeah he could just have a bad manager and I might have really good ones
There’s one tactic I’ve noticed that annoys the absolute crap out of me. I bet everybody has had this experience. You’re watching something on TV. It’s at a reasonable volume right? Then the commercials come on, and suddenly your TV is blaring! I bet that’s to get people to pay more attention to the commercials. Although I don’t know just exactly how effective that strategy is.
could also be a setting. something like "automatic volume adjustment", it's usually on by deafult. if it's on the ads will be blarin, turn it off and everything stays at the same volume.
Commercials were already louder than shows, at least as far back as the ‘60s when I was a kid. Advertisers knew that viewers were likely to step into the kitchen or go to the bathroom during commercials. They wanted their ads to be heard. People were complaining about it even then.
I've noticed that for furniture and cars commercials in particular.
Music has more energy than regular human sound. Commercials are music in the background and human sound in the foreground. So naturally they pack much more energy than normal sound.
I’ve noticed that and find it really annoying that they do that!
Shrink-flation is more obvious in France because it's mandatory for grocery shops to print to price per kg or liter on the barre code so it's super easy to compare prices, no matter the quantity in the item itself
It's the same in the UK but it's printed so small nobody looks. I used to work in retail so I'm always checking
Same here in Quebec. We have the prices marked with a sticker on the shelf but underneath the regular price tag, there’s an amount per 100g to compare with other products. (ex : 0.10$ per 100g)
This is good but there are still sneaky companies- Like a salsa company watered down their salsa so they dont have to decrease the size and we know this because the calorie per serving went down (without the amount per serving going down) and having "water" listed as the first ingredient
@@SaraLilyRose most people are too stupid to have the patience to actually read them, but this is nothing new, it's been happening since the 60's and it's becoming more frequent.
Most stores in the US do the same but super small font. I always check and it’s amazing to me that the larger size isn’t always the best price!
I have an insidious one for you. It's called "Priming." A great example of it is grocery stores that have their floral departments right as you enter the building. What's been discovered is if someone sees or smells fresh cut flowers, for the next 30 mins or so, they'll be "biased" to think everything is fresher than it actually is. So, grocers will put the flowers right when you enter, and have their produce and meats right after. That way, even if the meats, fruits, and veggies are a little "off looking," you'll still be influenced to think they're actually better than they are.
Creepy. But it's been used against customers for decades.
Wow, didn’t know that. My local supermarket does that; now I know why!
That’s justified bullshit.
If you make assumptions with no actually related evidence, that’s your own fault.
Priming 😮😮😮
My store has 2 entryways, 1 by produce with a Dunkin's and bakery on left of door floral to the right, the other door is self check out random cases of beverages & snacks frozen up ahead 'beauty products' seeing Dr Squatch on shelf smell like all the other soaps because if they are in the same tote before placed on the shelf and the ads state even the mailman will be jealous,I'm the guy if I have to get dish soap or laundry detergent find out what kind and enter the end closest to the product hold my breath and run, grab and run back, quickest isle I'd work in if forced to but pet is my extra I've got pasta/sauces canned veg and foreign food [rice, tacos, soy sauce get a giggle every time I see spotted dick, or cock soup, lately POMEGRANATE MOLASSES due to Shelby Shawarma vids and they say mayo is a sin like ketchup but the garlic sauce is just garlic MAYO!
8:03 - Hey, it’s shrinkflation! That one I _have_ heard about before watching this video. Funnily enough, the Pringles that you showed earlier refuse to do that! They even say right on the tube that there’s “Nothing half-full in _this_ tube!” And it shows: I’ve never bought a tube of Pringles that isn’t completely filled to the top, even with shrinkflation on the rise!
This comment is not sponsored by Pringles. I have no connection to them whatsoever besides buying their chips from time to time, and I thought I’d just give them some compliments on _actually_ being better than the competition!
I haven't watched cable television since moving out of my parent's house. The idea of paying for a service only to be sold advertising, never made sense to me.
same my mom was spendign 100$ on tv a month and im like why not dro it and just use internet? its not like you HAVE to pay for netflix.
I havent had cable in almost 25 years. Dont miss it. Saved money! Reruns got old while paying more for it. Work too hard for my money.
Same here. Almost three decades of living without TV. I've always considered that 20 minutes of advertising for 40 minutes of program was a terrible yield.
I'm the same way , I also feel the same way about radio
it depends also on who your provider and what the package your using
@20:00 about the bag of air.
While in a grocery store, I picked up a bag of Doritos but I noticed it was lighter than others of the same size.
I went to the fruit and veggies section (where you can weight the products) and actually weighted the bag.
The bag read "12oz" but the weight read "6oz" ( I have the picture), now THAT was a bag full of air.
Tip: if you think a bag or any box weight less than it reads, go weight it yourself or just don't buy it.
All that packaging says "sold by volume, not weight".
@@djp411 if the bag says it contain 12oz it SHOULD contain 12oz
@@djp411 Uh, it actually says the opposite, products like potato chips are sold by weight and not volume. The weights are usually quite accurate for things like Doritos (there could be serious consequences for misrepresenting the actual weight of the product), but occasionally a "defective" bag will slip through and make it into the wild. No manufacturing or quality assurance process is perfect.
@@megachonk9440 _"but occasionally a "defective" bag will slip through and make it into the wild."_
Here in the Netherlands, those lots often make it to our version of the 'Dollar store', I believe.
Those, misprints or stray shipments (localized for countries on the other end of europe).
It's kinda fun, reading the back of chocolate bars in Lithuanian.
those fruit measuring scales are not nearly accurate should have gone to the butcher counter and weighed it i doubt the fruit scales are even corrected once in their life even after years of use even my dialysis center has two electronic scales and sometimes one is .01 kg off from the other
I am 82 years old and I started noticing some of these tactics when I was in my twenties. Dial soap kept changing the shape and weight of their soap bars WAY back. Women's clothing sizes were changing then as well. The one thing that I wasn't aware of was the speeding up of TV shows, although I did notice the number of commercials increasing. I timed one hour long show, and found that actual show time was only
Hi Carol, Do you have any other tips or wise life tales to divulge please.....I just watched way of the house husband and I'm all about becoming a master of life and thinking outside of the box. SiDDERZzz
@@SIDDERZZZ what
Was only what? 🤔
@@ilumasytum I believe you have to elaborate on the reply of just "what". It's quite a vague thing to put. I mean it's just one word. If you were asking what about my reply to carol if she had any more interesting things or tips for improving then it basically meant pretty much how it was written.
@@GGamerLiam For some reason my comment was shortened quite a bit, so I resent it. Anyway the hour long show was only 36 mnutes.
I'm 70 now. Way back in high school, during my freshman year, it was mandatory reading of Vance Packard, about how corrupt the advertising industry is, and how well it works on humans. They spend billions to take our billions and it works like Slick50. One way I've used in the past, I've raised 6 kids (his, mine and ours), is to MUTE the tv when commercials are on! Faithfully! And now to this day, my kids HATE commercials! I was never bugged to buy certain products by the kids, I was never influenced to buy a certain product, I know how stores operate and shop accordingly. And if someone is slow with muting now, somebody is screaming "Mute the commercials already!" And, I noticed more commercials have been added! They have gone nuts! BUT......hit that mute button: it's like you get woke up from a coma! Thanks for the video! Very informative!
The store layout change actually deters me from going back; Especially Target. Because it’s so chaotic with the cramming of clothing, incredible size fluctuations between which isle you’re in , it becomes too overwhelming unless you have the ability to see what idle things are in on the app, like Walmart has- it helps truly speed things up by creating a list-looking at the app in the location you’re going to shop at and beside each item write down the isle it shows or general area in the store ..with headphones in and that in mind- it does lessen my time there. May not work for every store or person but I am happy to hear that it’s done on purpose so I can “beat the system “ 😂
A tv set in the store seems to have a better quality picture than the same tv set has in your home.
My brain associates people wearing masks with criminals.
Air bags are what pop out at you when you have a car accident.
I find it funny that these stores used these tactics for so long that people literally prefer to shop online just to avoid the overwhelm. Then they complain that no one shops in stores anymore. lol...
Speeding things up gives you a constant sense of urgency or the need to rush. Bad for a society that has lost its “patience” already
Yeah it is bad enough that cartoons these days give kids a constant shot of dopamine with something happening every second. Kids these days have become too impatient for slow scenes. If something doesn't happen for 2 seconds they get bored. A movie like the Fox and the Hound would never make it today. Heck I showed Disney's Junglebook (the original) to a group of kindergarteners, and 10 seconds in where the movies is just music and still frames of the jungle at night, they already started losing patience. Asking "Is this all?" and "When does it start?"
In my state IT department, I always applied "The Scotty Principal", like engineer Mr. Scott on Star Trek.... always pad out time estimates for projects. Seldom turn in the project early, or the bosses will catch on. But if a problem occurs, I have time to complete it before the deadline.
@lancerevell5979 nice
as a diabetic i can confirm when it says "low fat" it's usually high in sugar! i learned that wihle shopping for low sugar products, when i started looking deeper at the other ingredients. low fat means more sugar, or low sugar means more fat, it always balances out with something else
They are PURPOSELY putting in more sugar , cause they are in cahoots with the pharmaceuticals. They get you hooked on sweeteners and then you become a diabetic. You go to the doctor's who's also in on the game, he issues diabetic crap. They dont give a foook about your health, that's why they put corn syrup sweetener instead of natural sugar. Corn sweetener is dirt cheap, but fooks up your health. Dam bastards
I feel ya :)
Low sugar means artificial sweeteners, which might be ok for diabetics but they arent actually healthy to eat either.
i was diabetic ... made a commitment to cut sugar to near 0% and 3 years down the lane i cut carb to 10%. i eat fat, meat, lotsa vegetables, eggs, fresh milk and products ... now I am free of medication .... talk to your doctor. Don't ever buy industrialized food ....
@@kalaimuthu Well done, gyuess it's type 2 you had? Type 1 doesn't really work that way.
This was the most truthful thing ever. I thought he would mention that everyone in the world has 99 cents at the end of every price to make it seem less expensive, but I suppose it is so common he didn't need to.
Yea its just 1 fuckin cent less lol
@John and Sasha Davis That does make it seem like there is a better reason for it.
@John and Sasha Davis Μaybe it was just in your company cause here i see even old products that we buy for years to have the 99 price
That actually started out as a way to keep cashiers honest. It forced them to ring up the sale to open the drawer and make change, so it was at least harder to pocket the money and not record the sale.
IKEA does the same thing. it is intentionally designed like a maze so that people have to walk around the whole shopping mall when they want to leave. The entire process takes up to 2 hours even if you don't stop to look at anything.
*SCP 3008 SCP3008 SCP 3008 SCP 3008 SCP 3008* insane memories of The Staff and the Infinite Ikea*
Ikea is easy, just walk back to front, use the shortcuts.
When I need to pick something up inside the store, I am out in 5 minutes.
You can also enter between cash registers. There is a special path for this.
People also just go to the closest line at ikea. Not the shortest, the closest. Even if that's the self checkout, that's weirdly slower, even there are 4 scanners instead of one.
In supermarkets people actually use the shortest line and self checkout is actually faster.
Weird how this differs.
I don't know about you, but personally when I do go to IKEA I go there just to look around bc it's fun. You rarely need a whole new set of furniture anyways. Never been to one that big though.
I went to an Ikea ONCE to look for a new computer desk. Took almost a fricking hour (not joking) to get through the maze of furniture displays before finally coming to the large warehouse looking room, then another 10 minutes just to find the desk. And less than a year later, it already looked horrible due to the 'wood grain paint' having peeled off half of it, and the support bar on the back broken. Yeah, never going to that hellhole again.
oh! dont even get me started about ikea.... i got lost in there for like 3 hours... and i couldnt find the exit!
My red flag on groceries is when I see something like "gluten free" on a food that would never have gluten. When they act like I'm stupid I wonder what else they would pull. Also, when I find out a health food like a nutrient supplement has artificial sugar but doesn't expressly state it I feel lied to. I would prefer to have natural fat and carbs than take in chemicals that I don't trust and only find out when I get home because I couldn't read the fine print.
I once purchased a bottle gluten-free water. I wish I was joking.
yes
Well, to be fair, the "gluten free" tag is still extremely useful for those with gluten allergies/sensitivities(Not talking about the fad diet). There are a lot of products out there that appear to have nothing with gluten, but may actually have been produced in a facility that allowed for cross contamination. For people that are extremely sensitive, even a trace amount might cause a reaction that could lead to internal bleeding. I don't have the allergy, but my mother does, and you really don't realize how useful that label is until you have to make sure that just about everything has it or you have to tediously double check with a chart/forums online. While you still can't 100% trust labels because of poor regulations, that little label does have a purpose other than just tricking you. Some examples of not always gluten free products that seem gluten free are some cheese sauces and some flavors of Fritos. If they don't have the label, then they probably weren't on the specifically gluten free factory line.
yeah, my dad and I often joked about that. "Oh sorry dad, we have to stop buying peanut butter. It's now gluten free. So is the salsa." Yeah, the salsa and peanut butter jars both really said 'gluten free' on them
Face reveal
One more thing: the "small font" on sale items. A bigger trick stores use is the higher "scratched off" price. Here's an example I saw: There was a big screen TV I wanted that was on sale for $499. Sitting next to them in the store were "$1200 reduced to $599" TVs. There were no significant differences between these 2 sets. It made the $599 TV seem like a better bargain, but it was all a trick.
Kohl's "stunt pricing" pisses me off.
I'm surprised price cuts weren't mentioned in the video. I see this during Black Friday a lot, where a company normally sells a product for $50, marks the price up (maybe the original MSRP?) to say $75, and then stamps a price cut of 33% on it. Man! 33% off! Huge savings, I gotta buy this! While this isn't really a secret, it's still a conniving practice.
Let's start the lawsuits then
When I worked at a Hardware store back in 1972, the Boss had a 25% off paint SALE on Saturday. He and I spent all Friday night jacking up the prices by 25%
💯% true, 💯% agreed. It's more subtle on lesser items like electric pressure washers, micro 'fridges, blankets, comforters, & other things in that price range, isn't it? The obvious examples are when new car dealers advertise ridiculous discounts that you know are just vaporous stupidity: *"$10,000 OFF MSRP! !"* Or, *"SAVE SAVE SAVE! SELLING AT $2,000 UNDER DEALER'S INVOICE! ! !"*
I would like to think that _ANYONE_ over the age of 25 who's been in the working world awhile & has shopped for a new car more than just once can see right through such gimmickry. Because no car manufacturer in their right mind is going to set a price for any new car that's _ten thousand dollars_ over & above fair market value, which is determined by the natural market force of what people are actually willing to pay for that particular car. Anyone with half a brain knows how quickly that manufacturer's competitors would exploit such an inflated price, & they wouldn't be able to sell very many chevy cavaliers at that price (a hypothetical example) when all a new car buyer has to do is opt for a ford focus or a dodge neon for $10,000 less than that cavalier
Additionally, even in the worst of economic times, _NO CAR MANUFACTURER_ has ever given it's dealers an internal rebate or discount in even the $1,000 range. How much less likely at $2,000 off! That's a historic fact, Jack!
yep and the best "Deals" i fidn are acualy before or aroudn haloween and the black friday is false as in more expensive than haloween near time.
@@magnificentmuttley154 ruruwrforoduyuyiyiyiuuiiiiiiiiiiiiiouuiiiiiiiioiiiiiiiyuuiuuiuiuiyuuuiuiuuyu
Everything is that way. When I was a kid a Snickers bar was as big as a king size one now and it cost 16 cents. Ice cream used to be a half gallon, now its 54 or 48 ounces. And it goes on and on!
Wagon Wheels. 'Nuff said!
Yup sir exactly
Exactly, when I noticed the Snickers shrinkage about 15 yrs ago, I'd called them on it & their customer service said that Snickers hasn't changed all these years. Lies! My childhood Snickers had a good balance of layers, now I struggle to see the caramel or peanuts.
ikr...im an 80's baby n i swear my generation is the last to get the goodness
As a fan of Doritos, I'm terribly disappointed on the packaging
...it wasn't even full, the rest are just air
Nice video! Certain things are applicable to - this place - as well. Examples:
- Anything YT does to keep you watching, by feeding you with suggestions for videos that might interest you, based on all your earlier history (not by definition bad though, but just).
- Using the power of repetition: Continuesly asking people to sign up for the premium version, even after keeping dismissing the prompt (annoying).
- Secretly messing with settings: Intentionally re-enabling Autoplay once in a while where I dissabled it (hard to realy prove it as being intentional, but a suspicion by me, annoying).
16:37 Note that discount percentages are often printed bigger, while prices are small indeed. With this explanation it feels a bit easier to understand.
Also worth to add that with the most expensive products in this world, prices are often not shown at all.
Dude, the part about the shopping malls is SO TRUE. I be stopping at the grocery store in a HURRY and STILL end up taking my time
This was actually a really good list. I knew about or suspected a handful, but didn't know the full extent of it. Can't say I'm surprised, though. At the end of the day, it's always about maximizing profits. Never forget that!
I was going to comment on this but, you’ve said everything I wanted to say. I was familiar with a chunk of them. But the thing about mirrors with the Australia lady that surprised me. Not a lot, but enough to raise my eyebrows
Corporations are the presence of evil in the modern world. Never trust them. Never believe them. Vote for people who favor regulating them.
The psychological trick used by "The Economist" was the "anchoring effect". It is how we are develop biases based on the first perceived information. Earlier when there existed only two options, people opted for the cheaper one but when the dummy option was introduced, people were predisposed to judge the next option (print and web) after considering the false one (just print). It also a common strategy in retail where higher prices are mentioned on the tag at the top and then striked out and a lesser "cheaper" price is shown. We tend to compare "discount" price to falsely mentioned tag price. It is also seen in online shopping sites.
That was THE one that got me. I immediately thought the web and print was the best buy. But if I were an actual potential customer, I would probably have noticed the horrible deal the print only option was and that would have sent up warning flags. At least I'd like to believe that.
Isn't psychological manipulation considered a felony? Logically all of these market designers should go to jail.
Re-arranging store layouts is a big peeve of mine. But I am the get in-get it-and get out type and don't pay attention to items I'm not interested in while searching for what I went for.
I work at a grocery store and it's as annoying as it is for you as a customer as it is for me.
Amen!
I end up getting giving up trying to find stuff and leave half without getting half of what I wanted.. So for me, I spend LESS becuase I cant find anything and go elsewhere!
These sorts of tactics only further keep me shopping online. It's incredible that these companies are only shoving their customers into going elsewhere and seem completely oblivious. In a day when brick and morter stores are closing left and right, you'd think they would realize forcing customers into an uncomfortable shopping experience is, shall we say, counter-productive.
Same. If anything I find the change of pace exciting as, while I have to map the store in my head all over again, it is nice to see something new.
As a programmer, estimating the time things take is hard. The real point of a progress bar is to let you know the program hasn't frozen up
what if the bar stops? but its loading? wouldnt it be more effective just show that spinning thing that shows something went wrong if it stops?
bru
@@sheepriderkiller1181 Kind of. A lot of progress indicators (bar, percentage, etc.) can also have an animated "processing" indicator. Microsoft updates have I think 6 dots that appear from nowhere, go around in a circle twice, and disappear where they reappeared, and then repeat. The rainbow wheel on Apple products (is that even still around?), and so on. If it's not meant to be a lengthy process (such as starting a program), often just the animation is enough to let the user know that it's working and not frozen.
Similarly, video games can often use intros that require minimal resources to run while the game itself is loading in the background; if it's just a simple menu UI, more detailed intros can be buffered and usually can be immediately skipped, whereas if it is going to drop you into an interactive hub after the intro, it will sometimes be a simple slideshow, and may have voice lines and subtitles, and it will need some time before it lets you skip it; sometimes there can be another loading screen that is simply connecting you to a live server that is hosting multiple players on the same instance of the hub.
The only example off the top of my head of the latter, is The Cycle: Frontier, where it uses voice lines to explain the game's setting, and a slideshow of pictures to emphasize that setting; there's of course an indicator with various dots spinning around in a circle, but you can't always immediately skip the intro unless you have a lightning fast computer, and then when you do, you hit an actual loading screen showing promotional art for the game's current season. When you fully drop in, you're on a space station that is a live server, containing several other players that have also just connected or have finished a session of gameplay.
Essentially, this kind of "trickery" is more of an accommodation of expectations than anything else.
Be Amazed, you have such a pleasant and calming voice to go along with your amazing content, thankyou :)
I cancelled any cable or as a fact any TV in my home in 2006 when we renovated our flat.
Since than, i am only watching series in my laptop if i decide to, freeing up a lot of my time (and brain power) to do more important things with my life ...
In 2006 my girlfriend asked me which kind of TV we would like to have in our living room.
I asked back, well, what time you actually watched a TV? Could not remember. So we decided to scrap the idea to buy a TV in 2006 ...
Best decision ever.
Traded a tv for youtube.... ok.
You could always buy a TV and use it as a monitor for your laptop, tablet, or computer, that's what I did anyway! I too never watched cable TV anymore and would spend the majority of my time at home on my laptop, but I missed having a big TV screen to watch movies on.. I had thought about buying a newer smart TV because all I watched was youtube, but i didn't like how you could only use one app at a time, or how apps like youtube don't show the comment section etc. sooooooo, I went to BestBuy and bought two 50 inch Insignia TV's and I hooked my Surface Pro tablet up to one in my living room via an HDMI cable, and the other in my bedroom up to my laptop also via HDMI cable, and I just post up on the couch, or in my bed with a wireless keyboard and mouse using them as a monitor! (; I can literally watch youtube, netflix, even cable tv, and still check work, email, browse Facebook or instagram, and shop on Amazon all at the same time and I absolutely LOVE having a set up like this in both rooms! Anyway, I just thought I'd toss an idea your way so you can enjoy watching your series, or being on your laptop a little more conveniently. :)
@@rockstarbmf9595
What a great idea!
There is a local donut shop where if you order a donut , they always put a plate of 7 different flavored donuts in front of you
They will only charge for the one you took in your plate.
However this instantly urges any customer to take more than 1 coz they are super delicious and as they are readily available in front of them , they do not give any second thoughts before taking another.
Now your mouth is dry so they intentionally will offer you coffee and as you had the donuts , you will definitely crave for some and you take one sip of coffee.
And there you go , that shop legally took more money from you than what you originally intended to spent.
Now if the bill is like $8.50 and you give a $10 bill they will intentionally give you coins in change so that when you tip , you unknowingly tip them more because its in our nature to avoid large number of coins while we are outside
So true
Coffee makes me go crazy, so I will gladly refuse coffee in that donut shop and opt for cocoa instead.
When I go into a store to buy donuts, I go in with the intent to ONLY get 1 doz. to take home. At home I ration myself to two (or just one if they are large enough) per day until gone. I do the same when I buy chocolate but it's a bit harder to ration my chocolate. ;-) As for coffee, I hate coffee & will only drink it if it's cold & I'm tired of hot tea or cocoa. But even then only one cup because, as I hate the taste so much, I end up having to use too much sugar & cream to make it palatable.
As for coins, I just save those to use at the stores that say they're 'short' on change. But more often than not, I will use a debit card and just round up when I balance my checking register/account. All the 'extra' cents get put into a column called 'float' to be saved up until I have $20 or $30 to transfer to savings. Or be used for something I budgeted for, which ends up costing a bit more than I expected to pay.
Man everybody noticed. We all noticed that they were making the item smaller. Then they started making the excuse that it was for health reasons. Now they have portion sizes. They also change the recipes of drinks.
Ah, now I know why.
I thought it's just me getting older.
I'm gonna go 18 for a few months now. And I'm anxious at being adult.
Seeing these things(the videos and things about facts) just makes me go cray cray.
Like really, I thought chocolates or anything just get smaller because I get bigger.
These just makes me want to study accounting more which I don't have passion about.
Guilt tripping me that I need to do this before pleasure.
I had a Pepsi addiction until they changed the taste of it and upped the price; I don’t buy it anymore!
Amazing how many videos this channel has. This is my favorite channel and I keep expecting to run out of content, but nope still digging. Thanks for all the entertainment.
Lengthening processes is also a cost cutting measure. You would think that a company wouldn't slow down its own employees, but I had to implement that feature to avoid wasting more time and resources.
In one company, I rewrote a process which took 30 minutes and failed from time to time to generate all required numbers. So, the employee had to wait about 30 minutes AND check that the generation happened correctly. Couldn't believe that did even happen, so I reviewed the implementation and it was a facepalm moment. The web fronted literally sent hundred of thousand request to a back-end, so the server just ignored some of the requests and the browser limited the number of simultaneous requests too! That's why it took so much time and didn't generate all numbers.
So, I rewrote the back-end so everything happens at the database level, all the back-end did was to receive the number of numbers to generate and return OK. It took few milliseconds to be successful 100% of the time. Deployed it, then saw millions of numbers being generated, asked the employee why there were so much generation happening and he replied that it didn't work. Then he proceeded to show me that it didn't do anything and just shown the "done" message. Told him that it was that fast, but he clearly showed distrust. So, I deployed another version which faked a 30 seconds progress bar and voilà, all complaints gone...until I left and they reverted back to the old generation because nobody knew how to maintain PL/SQL and if there was a change to be done, they wouldn't be able to do it!
In another company, I shrunk a one week process to about 7 seconds. A lot of distrust happened and it was thoroughly checked as a result. Then I was asked to write a small paper explaining how it work and to prove it. When I submitted the paper, my boss laughed that he didn't understood and neither will the other, but that's what they needed. So, I just explained to him what was bayésien inference and skipped things like vectorisation. So, somewhere, there is a paper that is there just to say "yup, it works" ^^
And to be fair, when I wrote it, I laughed a bit, knowing that it would fly over the head of most people and that it was just to reassure higher up that the guy who did it knew one thing or two. (Normally, you shove your master diploma to your face, but I have "only" a bachelor degree)
Another thing stores do (especially Walmart) is place items that are frequently sought after towards the middle and back of the store, so you have to pass through other areas (which have slightly less sought after, but attractive items) that might catch your eye to browse/buy
That's the same as groceries putting milk all the way in the back, to maximize being tempted by all the stuff you'd need to pass (both ways) by.
also that video you just saw theres a part that says to you like and subscribe
Even here in the Netherlands. Like how our drugstore has the cosmetics in a corner in the back, straight line from the entrance. They make a beeline there, then remember they came for painkillers and tampax. So take the next aisle over, blindly grab tampax mid-sidestep, then straight on to checkout. _But _*_THEN_* a _colorful_ Full Frontal Eyeful of _deodorants and shampoos_ (cleverly tucked in their looping aisle). Then, Finally grab the aspirine mid-step, _only_ to get tempted into a (frankly) tiny "loop 'de perfume" next to checkout.
This all in such a tiny store, It's amazing; its just some arrows and meatballs short of being the IKEA Experience.
Another trick stores do is put their preferred items, the ones they want you to buy, at eye level so it's the first thing you see. The less expensive and discounted brands are always placed low on the shelf where you're more likely to overlook them.
@@Durwood71 True!
I remember when I was a kid the Dorito bags used to be full almost no air, nowadays at least 45% of the bag is just air. What a shame. The only place where “shrinkflation” hasn’t happened is the dollar store.
i wish i were you 💀
Actually it has happened at the dollar store for me. I used to be able to buy 20oz name brand drinks but now theyre in 16oz cans for the same (although recently increased) price.
@@allred58 at my dollar store the sizes stayed the same but it’s not 1.25$
@@anthony21roman No, Dollar Tree detergent increased to $1.25 (along with all their other $1 items) AND the laundry detergent shrank by a whopping 33% too!
I DESPISE commercials enough that I pay for premium TH-cam. What frustrates me with TH-cam is how they'll use any excuse they can to keep creators' money. Especially with true crime.
Thanks for throwing in the size tricks clothing companies use because my husband constantly struggles with his weight and one of the biggest issues he's complained about is how the same jeans, same brand and size is a different size than the ones he bought a couple years prior. They STILL pull that crap and I'm going to make a concerted effort to refuse products by dishonest companies. Btw, Wrangler & Lee brand are the jeans I'm talking about so we won't be using theirs anymore and I will make sure they know why
the size thing is difficult to get around. IDK about mens clothing as much since they use actual measurements for pants but for womens clothing it's crazy how much it has changed. Plus things vary so much from different stores it's ridiculous. I have clothes that range from size 18 to 3x that fit. It takes the convenience out of online shopping b/c the size charts are generally for an hour glass shaped person (which I am not) so I have no idea what size to buy most of the time and would spend less time actually driving to the store to try it on that deciphering the size chart and trying to find reviews/pics of people who are similar to my size/shape. It's infuriating actually.
The thing with the jeans is that if they didn't adjust the size, more people would complain that they don't fit but others brands this size do.
Same!!
@@BonnieGruesome Same. Adverts drive me crazy especially when around 98% of them hold absolutely no interest for me. I can't imagine going back to watching mainstream commercial TV either. Being told what I can watch & when holds no appeal. And the variety of shows available in each country is dismal in comparison to having the entire world's viewing range at my disposal.
So, when I was going to college for engineering and auto mechanics, I was working at a lube shop. It was just something to pay the bills at the time. I started to notice that different auto manufacturers colored their fluids in different ways. Often times these fluids are the same as their competitors, however the color is different. Making you think that you have to buy that particular manufacturer’s fluids because they are of a certain color. Above and beyond this, the lube shop used an interesting technique. They had a little Lucite panel that had some liquids sealed inside of it. These liquids were claimed to be of fresh origin. And then they had a little dishes in front of those where you could put samples of the fluids from the customers car. So even if the fluid wasn’t bad the color comparison would lead the customer to believe that the fluid was bad. Just because a fluid has changed color a little bit does not mean that it needs to be replaced at that point in time. It was supposedly a way to show them that their fluid was dirty. All fluids get dirty in a machine. That does not mean that they are still not doing their job. So many little tricks in the automotive industry to make you think you need one thing when you need nothing at all.
Same with drug stores. People generally go to a drug store to pick up prescriptions but they put the pharmacy all the way in the back so that you have to pass all the over-priced snacks, batteries, and everything else on your way in and out in the expectation that, if you are sick or caring for someone who is, you'll be reminded that, while the milk or cereal here is obviously more expensive, you won't want to have to leave the house later to go to the store if you run out so, might as well get it while you're there.
Grocery stores have bakeries up near the entrance because the smell of of fresh-baked bread or cookies is practically a part of our DNA that takes most of us to a childhood feeling of being safe and relaxed, which tends to make us let our guard down...and buy more. We even have a grocery store near me that has its own barbecue restaurant just inside the entrance (and it is VERY good bbq, too). Coming in from the parking lot, the smell of the wood smoke is mouth-watering! 🤤😋
Once you're aware of these sneaky things, at least you can make a conscious decision of what to buy.
Ok
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I have another theory why the smaller price tag works. It plays on our sense of finding something that maybe no one else has seen yet. For example: If you are going through a rack of jeans, and find one with a sale price tag on it, the first thing you think of is, "Wow I'm lucky I found this before someone else caught it." We feel we got one over on the next shopper. If there are huge signs showing the same price we may even just ignore it because we see big sale signs all the time.
I know I'm guilty of it. If I see a pair of jeans on the rack with a red sale price tag on it, stuck over the regular price, and it's a couple bucks cheaper, I'm always tempted to get them. But if I see a big sale sign, I usually don't pay much attention to it, because they are all over.
I think I've successfully 'programmed' my brain to filter out in-store sale signs, the primary color kind at least.
I was in a free local art gallery, when a friend pointed out this set of primary red, yellow and blue printed-sign-like paintings (which apparently was hand-painted). I had looked right at them, past them, over them, like nothing was hanging there. Like my brain somehow replaced each with a placeholder sign. It really took a while to register.
This guy could read the ingredients on a shampoo bottle and I would still listen intently :)
The contents contains. Coconut oil, sage leaf, Glyceyl….. you know what it’ll also contain?…… to press the subscribe button. 😂
I for real just noticed that they made all the candy bars a little smaller than they used to be but there still 1$ each tho
Thanks!
Fact check: Kopiko is actually an Indonesian brand of coffee confectioneries, exported to many countries, including the philipines.. I love them, taste more like toffee.. 😘
Another trick is to name the product as if it sounded like it came from other countries, and we have a lot like those in my country: Sophie Martin Paris Accessories, Paseo Tissue, Lea Jeanes, California Fried chicken, HokaHokaBento Restaurant, Buccheri Shoes, La Fonte Pasta, Equil Water, Terry Palmer Towels etc etc.. and also the reverse too, product names from other countries that sounded like our language will be bought to show our love of local products, but in reality its not local made! Like Bata Shoes 😁
I learned about vanity sizing when I went to university for fashion design. It's where I learned to shop by my measurements and not a size number. I always get the right size the first time even when I shop online. As long as you're honest about your measurements, this works with every label and every store.
Nope! it doesn't. The measurements are for an hour glass shaped person and if you aren't then it's extremely difficult to shop online. If you have a very large or very small bust, a large waist/stomach, very wide or very narrow hips, or a long or short torso, (and a lot of people fall into one of these categories) it makes shopping online really hard unless the item has a bunch of reviews and photos from different people and even then you can see how the same garment will look very different on different body types. Shopping online seems convenient but I'm finding that I spend less time if I can go into the store and try the item on than if I am online deciphering a size chart, looking at the cut and material and trying to find reviews to see how it might look on me, looking at the return policy etc.
I noticed this trickery years ago. Another trick you missed is the transition resizing. They have their product at its usual size and price. They also add a smaller size (perhaps 20% less) at a reduced price ($1 maybe) People want a savings, so they buy the smaller one. The "research department" tells the company the consumer likes the smaller size. They stop producing the larger size but keep the same price as the larger size. We saw that a few times.
Wow the last episode of this series was like a few years ago. Looks like we've come a long way Be Amazed. If i get pinned, I'll SQUEAL!!
Yeah
Do the trick of saying the creators name 3 times so u can get pinned
@@claritiacheryl7365 Aight that sounds cool @BE AMAZED @BE AMAZED @BE AMAZED
@@brawlgaming1934.
Weird Flex But Okay
All standard ice creams used to be half gallon standard. Then they reduced to 1.75 or even 1.5 quarts - all at the same price. Only Blue Bell still sells the half gallon. Also, at the same time Dollar Tree upped all their prices from $1 to $1.25 they ALSO reduced the size of many items, like their laundry detergent, which shrank a whopping 30%! Also, bleach at Dollar Tree is more diluted than standard grocery store or name brand such as Clorox.
Worse one I found to be a complete waste of money is there drain cleaner which seems to be mostly water
@@stevesteve7815 Yeah, I only shop there for my vacation rentals which I have many. It is good for stocking up on basic supplies to get guests started and that is a case where we are not trying to by large sizes because we supply starter supplies of paper towels, detergents, etc. and the guests replenish themselves when they run out. But yeah, was always nice they were $1 like the store name implies. Very disappointed they raised prices AND used shrinkflation on many items too.
I don’t shop Dollar Tree much, now once they added in the extra quarter!
Another trick I saw used when working in retail was the "new bigger packet". True to their word, the packet WAS bigger. The weight of the contents stayed the same.
im gonna be totally honest, some of these tricks realy suprised me, almost shocked me. Good content from the creater, keep up the good work.
👋🏻hi
We should all take a time to appreciate the time they put for these incredible videos!😃
Bot
THIS COMMENT I JUST FUCKING ANNOYING!!!
Now I know why my local supermarket is a literal MAZE
Call me out for double posting often, but I usually reply to individual parts of a video.
The knowledge now that a medium fry is about the same as a small has blown my mind.
Rather than spending 12$ on a Bic Mac Meal at McDonalds, I could now just get the sandwich for, I dunno, is it 6$ without the combo? I haven't eaten there in years. Prices and a BUNCH of friends who used to work there have kept me from spending what little I have there.
But let's say it is 6$, I can just get a 1$ small soda and a 1$ (if it's still there) small fry? And it's the SAME meal for 8$ that they want 12$ for?
"oh but medium drink"
My dude, in the early 90's when we were limited to ONE refill, that the employees had to do, okay. (I'm not old, you are!)
But now, a small cup with infinite refills is the same as a large.
I HAVE BEEN LIED TO!!
Your content is great man, I enjoy watching them & it's addicting too. More success to you man.
Nothing secret about it. Anyone that notices these things still can't change them.
u are able to change it just look at the toblerone 9:43 just strike when they change the size and they'll either have to change it back or lose more money than they gain
Similarly like "the Overton window". Wow, we manipulated our whole lives.
More than 30 years ago I saw the size of pastries that my company sold get smaller but the box did not, and they kept the same price.
I have been watching commercials since the late 60s. I'm full. Commercials do not influence me at all. Lucky for me we were poor, so we never bought things that we advertised. Today commercials mean nothing to me but a waste of time. Plus considering the billions I've watched (I was raised by TV), I should get a free pass and not have to watch them anymore. Thank you ad blocker, I love my ad blocker. Great video, Amazing.
19:36 it’s true, I guess,watch Food Theory’s shrinkflation vid if u want to know more, more air makes them break more, too little air also makes them break
Shrinkflation is an old concept. Potato chips, candy bars, breakfast cereal, cookies, meat, and one of the worst being coffee. Amounts dropped as prices climbed.
Funnily enough, I'm the exact opposite of that last brainwashing concept. My mum loved having coconut related foods prior, but when I was born I hated coconut related foods. To this day too! 🤣
Same
Me too! I despise anything to do with coconut.
I hate coffee, so clearly my mom didn't drink it xD
Regarding advertising, TH-cam has got to be the worst. Google is making so much from the adds but only passing a fraction on to the creators. Personally if I see and add I refuse point blank to ever use that product.
Shrinkflation pisses me off way more then raising the price.
Changing to cheaper ingredients to keep the price the same is also a terrible practice. Kraft Mac and cheese is a perfect example of this. I used to love it but now it quite literally tastes like cardboard due to a change in ingredients.
Same is true for various breakfast cereals. I now hate the taste of certain cereals I used to love. Honeycomb, for example. (Does that even exist now? I haven't seen Alpha-bits lately either.)
dumbflation of your head is disturbing
@@meanralYou're not cooking with that comment. 🗿
*than
21:29
Most of the time when you uncheck those selected and you try to submit you will get a message saying that you have to select everything and you are forced to go to settings on your device and allow it as if you would have had to do in the beginning.
This goes well beyond food in grocery stores shrinking the amount of food and other products. There are things such as teflon pans vs cast iron pans but even tho cast iron pans are more expensive most people go for the cheaper option which is not as healthy for you.
I look at both the price and size. TP and paper towels can be misleading. The size of the sheets and the length can be duped so you think that you are getting more for your price paid but that is not always true. They can change the size of the sheets and add more sheets but this can be botched by the paper being thinner and when it comes to one roll being like 5 regular rolls that is a blatant lie.
You name it, it is smoke and mirrors.
22:50 I am a Filipino and I admit that I am addicted to coffee from the day I first started drinking it and ate some coffee candies. So, yep. The addiction MAY HAVE rooted from Grandma's little convenience store where Grandpa, a taxicab driver at that time (early '90s), used to drink coffee and eat some coffee candies whenever he's on break or whenever his shift is over. I sincerely think that while mom was pregnant with me, I always have heard "coffee" more than 7 times a day. 😅
I haven't owned a TV for years. Everything comes in to the computer! Plus, I play games about 10x more often than watch anything, given the unutterable crap that a lot of places stream.
Im at the point I see ads so much I refuse to spend money on anything that shoves an ad in my face and interrupts my music and videos. They make me so mad now that I refuse to spend my money on a company that has no respect for people. I will spend more and go out of my way to find what i need in order to not support ads.
But then again there is the concept of priming. The reason why a lot of these ads don’t actually sell something in particular because they are showcasing their brand to promote recall.
I LOVE be amazed. I learn so much and it always cheers up my day. It's a great break from the crazy world we live in. Btw I love the narrator of the videos, the cartoons and the music. I wouldn't change a thing!
4:00 I love places like malls and casinos. Even if I don't buy anything or play, I like the exploration. Just walking around and finding mysterious hallways and stuff. I would love to try a real Labyrinth.
Merci!
This is why I am a BIG fan of Mom and Pop stores! I have shopping in Malls and if I can't find a shop I leave without buying anything.
It is a shame that they have to be pushed back by bigger corporations, our town used to be all mom and pop, small-town stores, but they have been going out of business lately, but at least people are fighting the addition of chain restaurants and shopping centers. I wish this video would not have to be a thing.
I like how he asks whether we're fed up with TV advertisements, then requests that we add a comment to share our opinion. He's secretly tricking his viewers to increase the comment count on his video by asking for opinions about something everybody finds annoying. Well played!
😂
Everyday when he uploads no matter what it makes my day thank you
13:40 I don't watch TV, and... sorry BE AMAZED, I use Adblock too. Hey when you watch as much youtube a day as I do, having 3 x 1-2 ads per video is enough to drive a man insane. My watch-time will have to be enough for you guys. I mean I finally had enough when I binged a 15 min x 50 part let's play of Uncharted, where not only was it the SAME bloody ad I got every time... I got it 3 times per bloody video. Meaning the same ad played in 5 min intervals.
The change in clothing size numbers right now is making me want to not buy things any more and when the clothes I have are unwearable, I just want to go with the "birthday suit". Yeah... I really do feel like not buying clothes anymore with size changes and the different brands marking their sizes differently than each other.
I've seen the use of shrinkflation in my grandfather's bakery. But they only do it when the prices of goods has increased.
So they apply food inflation too.
Fantastic video, clearly pointing out and explaining the tricks these marketing assholes have discovered/designed
Kudos to you! I have bitched about this very thing for years to the point of my friends accusing me of being a conspiracy theorist..but hey..just because you think people are out to get you, doesn't mean they aren't, am I right? huh?
2:15 This LITERALLY happened to me three weeks ago when I updated my X-Box One 1540 Console. You know, the one with the USB-A port on the side, literally the first X-Box One console Microsoft EVER made. Yeah, the original.
I had to unplug and restart it SEVEN TIMES until it finally gave me the results that I was waiting for. But it was worth it, because I think the update also updated the API that takes advantage of the hardware, and loading times have greatly decreased. And performance, Increased. Pretty good for a nine year old X-Box One!
I disabled my cable years ago and just pay for a basic internet package. Saves a bundle. Now a days cable companies let you pretty much watch everything on their website for a fraction of the price. So long as you can get to it before they remove it from the site.
I've noticed Subway now it's still making their subs 12 inches long but they are making them thinner or not as wide.
Also their 6-inch sandwich "deals" are now the same price as their footlong deals were 5 years ago
I knew I was being tricked every time I walked into a grocery store, they weren’t fooling anyone🙄
It was super frustrating during Covid restrictions when it took 4x longer to find basic items 🥴
Yeah, [that one supermarket] has a long line of products supposed to loop you around at least a third of the things until you get to pay, but when I only have a few bottles to bring back, I just walk through the open gates of the cash registers where there are no cashiers
I hate that stores have no windows it makes me feel closed into a shop anymore stressed so costermers with disabilitys just walk straight out so theyare actually losing money
I also hate that thing that he calls shrinkflation
You guys have grocery stores while we have sari-sari stores.
Huh, the Food Theorists did a video something like this quite recently. It must be MIND MELD TIME OF GENIUSES!!!!!
0:50 in my personal opinion, I don’t blame those company if too many people doubt them, it’s all thanks to society’s expectations of how things should only look like ONE WAY RIGHT. They can’t accept facts that it only takes seconds for those updates. So to avoid any explosive dramas, they’ve decided those actions. Either ways they’ll be judged IF YOU COME TO LOOK CLOSER, they just prevented dramas from people who doesn’t trust the SHORTER process.
and it took them even less time to sell our information away for exploitation
2:23 There's a fix for this: write down and remember what size clothing you wear so next time you shop, you know what you're looking for and waste less time. I do it all the time with t shirts.
Our grocery stores change their layouts so often. It annoys the hell out of me. I'm a very impatient shopper. Know what I want, in and out.
I agree totally. I hardly go inside to shop anymore. I order my groceries online, then pick them up a few hours later.
Yes I’ve become very impatient, as well. It’s too many people in the way just browsing mindlessly while I just want to get in and out, already knowing what I need but waiting for others to make a decision and move out of the way.
i like when ppl sell organic manure. makes me wonder if there's a synthetic version
Lately I’ve seen the packages shrink and the prices going way up. I bought some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for the first time in a while and I was shocked how small the cups have gotten and they cost more too. It’s ridiculous. Honestly I haven’t seen one product in the store that hasn’t went up at least a few cents. Some have increased several dollars. It’s getting really scary out there.
you're right, the butter cups have shrunk! I was eating one the other week and thought maybe my brain was playing tricks on me. even the Resses single wraped shapes for the holidays have become smaller now that I remember.
have you heared about pandemy? every thing is more expensive now doesnt matter how package looks theres price for product that only matters. if you think you are scammed gl in court somehow nobody tried
2:17 what Riot do you know of that was started for less than updating time I am very curious
4:35
As Superman once sarcastically said about malls. "For those who worship their credit cards."
I just saw a similar video by Food theory about this as well. Too bad these things happen so much
This is why I always compare price per gram, screw size and amount
I just wanna say, I'm a huge fan
I avoid commercial television at all cost. I either pay to stream with no commercials or record shows and fast forward through the commercials.
So much this. I don't know how long it's been since I watched a show while it was being broadcast.
I do not watch television because of the advertising. I try to keep my home as much of an ad-free place as much as possible, as it is so good for mental health. I block ads on my web browsers so I can't see them. I pay to not see them.
My dad paid for no ads but he still gets ads😕
I haven't had cable since 2011. I don't miss it at all, and I almost NEVER see ads.
5:56
Me: I'm a true technophile...I just love my computer!
My computer: **whispering** Somebody call the police!
for that tv ad one, I think it's a good idea because it also lets viewers have more breaks to get snacks grab stuff etc. and combats shrinking attention spans.
for example, occasionally I'll start watching a video and be enjoying it then i catch sight of something in my recommended or pause to get a drink or something and suddenly that video that I was so interested in before is too long and can't hold my attention anymore. At that point the only ways I've found work to finish are 1. set it to 1.25 speed and force my full attention onto it(full engagement) 2.take a break or 3. swap to something else then go back to it after.
*I noticed many of these sneaky tactics while working at a department store back in the early 2000's. But the store manager had no "bolas" when it came to angry customers wanting something for nothing (like customers returning year old+ shoes, or dirty used clothing) and he would subsequently fully refund cash to them. All they had to do was demand "corporate's number"🙄🙄 That particular store went belly-up around 2007.*
Sounds like Macys 😆
I think shrinkflation is a pain in the ass. I'm middle aged and I've been noticing more and more how even my favorite candy bars keep on getting so smaller. This is why we didn't want small businesses to go away and to keep them around to compete with the big companies. Now they have all the freedom they want to gouge every little last penny out of our pocket. Like the crows on the movie The wiz said to Michael Jackson as the scarecrow, this is your life buddy all hung up get used to it.
When i hear Humanizing personal items
My first thought is naming your guns that you always use in a fight (let's just hope that "always" is in a war, not just random homicide)
@5:24 Does Walmart also tell their employees to avoid helping customers so that the customer has to find the item by wandering around, or are they just crappy employees?
17:08 I think for me it’s more a feeling of it not being a real sale - they’re claiming it’s only reduced for a limited time
When products reduce in size,quantity, and/or volume while leaving the price the same, the next step is increasing the prices. THEN, when they make the product bigger again, say, 20% more free, as an example, we feel like we're getting a better deal. But it's not.
1:46 I think that's kind of funny that it builds trust because most people's issues with phones and computers and everything is how long it takes for them to load and if it takes less than a second I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person that would be really really happy about that as long as the product did exactly what I was supposed to do afterwards
Those constant commercials are the exact reason I “cut the cord” some time ago. My only regret is I didn’t do it sooner.
Here are few you missed:
- Putting fresh(er) stuff behind the less fresh stuff in an aisle
- Putting expensive stuff in the eye level and hand level aisles while putting cheaper one in the foot level or overhead aisles.
- Shops want to increase prices? They start a discount first. They they replace the old "old" price with the new "old" price. Or simply leave the "old" price out. Once the customers forget what the old price used to be, they are free to put the inflated price without too much backlash from the customers.
- Discounted items are often placed next to expensive stuff in hopes for "I saved money for that stuff, I deserve a treat" kind of thought in some of their customers. They also like to vary the location of the discounted stuff or place the same discounted stuff at multiple locations for the same reason.
One of my favorite stupid designs for food sales was when a few years ago it became a trend to make mini versions of everything. It was sold as a way to have smaller bit sizes when in reality it was just MUCH less product for even more money. And all this came to a hilarious point when they started selling Maxi mini versions.......which were pretty much just normal sized versions they could sell for more because they were special. You gotta almost hand it to them when it comes to how creative they are at scmaming people.