If you’re shopping for Right Guard deodorant at Walmart, be careful before you pick up that twin-pack thinking that, like the packaging says, you’ll “Buy 2 and Save.” Because if you do the math, you’ll realize you’ve just saved yourself out of $.97.
Eagle-eyed Consumerist reader Chad spotted this at his local Walmart and noticed that the $5.97 price for the twin-pack was noticeably more than twice the $2.50 price of the same product sold individually.
By comparison, this makes the $0 savings at last week’s Old Navy sale look reasonable.
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Happens all the time. I just bought 2 twenty packs of dishwasher tabs that equaled about a dollar cheaper than the 40 pack. Some woman right before I got there grabbed a 40 pack. And at least in our Wal-Marts the cost per item is listed on the price tag. It’s maddening simple. If people are too lazy/incapable/unwilling of doing simple math in their head then I guess I do not feel bad that Wal-Mart made an extra dollar.
TP is pry the hardest item to determine if you are getting the best deal or not.
I noticed at Walmart the other day that the 40 ct bag of Pizza Rolls was cheaper per count/lb than the 70 ct bag, which was then cheaper than the 140 ct bag per count/lb. Apparently it is more expensive to buy Pizza Rolls in bulk at Walmart.
And 40 is much better because I end up eating the whole bag at once anyway, so thanks Walmart!
I spend the most time looking at TP trying to decide whats the best deal
OMG, jacked up price labels. TO THE INTERNETS!!!!
Still worth it. I need those extra 1.33 seconds more than i need the 97 cents. Hell, I make that much money in like, 30 minutes.
$1.93 an hour? Damn, I need to hire you (at a 10% raise), Willing to to secretarial work for a law office?
Must not be a very good law firm if you aren’t aware that it would be illegal to hire this person for $2.12 an hour. Unless you can hire a law firm secretary for tip wages?
Do people tip law firm secretaries?
This happens all the time at my local Target with deodorant. Only a few times have the double packs been less than two single packs.
Wow, makes me feel good about the $7.95 I spent at Sams Club for a 5 pack of Degree. I’m set until maybe mid 2011 now.
because of the coupon out right now
http://coupons2.smartsource.com/smartsource/index.jsp?Link=GLPAHOLHDARLS
pg 3, bottom left
So buy 2 of the singles. You come out ahead still.
Does anyone else think that “5″ is shopped? I don’t know why, but it just doesn’t seem to look right…
Their “5″s always look odd. Perhaps they haven’t switched to an eco-friendly font?
It’s just the 5 on the left looks good. The one on the right looks a little fuzzy and slightly darker than the numbers next to it. But maybe I have seen too many photoshops in my time…
I have notified the cyber police and the state police. They assured me that they will begin the backtracing immediately. I will let you know if their investigation provides the answer
And if the perpetrators are caught, the consequences will never be the same.
Can you tell from the pixels and from having seen quite a few shops in your time?
I caught this at my local walmart last week. its legit
This was on sale at my local grocery store for $2
Even though pricing mixups aren’t a secret, I think stores are going to ban cell phone photography to a large degree pretty soon.
Nah… it’s the kind of thing that would be totally unenforceable and just generate bad press regardless (like the day they try to kick someone out for taking a phone picture of their kid doing something cute).
I’m sure they can bring the arm and hammer down on them. It is private property after all and they don’t have to gillette them take pictures. Maybe the store will just axe them instead of being a brut about it.
Oh, you are good.
They must have a reason to do so. Art gallery? Hurts the artwork.
Walmart?
“Exposes our scammy pricing tactics?”
IIRC, Plan-o-grams cost a lot of money to make.
Most stores already have policies against in store photography but with a cell phone its kinda hard to enforce. I have one of those apps on my phone that you can scan a barcode and it will compare internet prices, I was trying to scan a barcode once in a Target and they threatened to kick me out, first they though I worked for a competitor and was stealing prices, then they though I was taking pictures, and I was informed both would get me kicked out.
Man.. another deodorant post.
For those that have missed out on similiar deodorant pricing issues, see some here:
http://consumerist.com/2010/06/walmart-deodorant-pricing-scheme-smells-off.html
(“The sad thing is,” tipster Inuyasha writes, “many people had the larger sticks in their shopping carts.”) I still laughed at that when re-reading the article just now
http://consumerist.com/2008/08/targets-buy-two-and-save-speedstick-deodorant-deal-stinks.html
http://consumerist.com/2008/08/walmarts-buy-2-and-save-old-spice-deodorant-deal-stinks.html
http://consumerist.com/2008/07/targets-degree-deodorant-pricing-scheme-rewards-those-who-pay-attention.html
oh wow. That was 2008 when most of those were posted. I thought it was like 5 months ago.
Man… TIME FLIES WHEN YOU’RE HAVING A BLAST
Or when you pass out all the time…
yeah really. Maybe that’s why I act like a 10 year old. Because I’ve only been awake 10 out of my 30 years.
Well this can’t be right? As the Redneck Hick slogan goes, “always the lowest prices, always”. Hmm. I guess that’s just a marketing gimmick and not true for the actual prices. Actually the only people who still shop Walmart are redneck hicks or devotely loyal Fox News viewers. Consumerist can make fun of Target but at least they don’t have entire websites devoted to the people that shop them like, people of walmart.com and the 100′s of other Walmart fail sites.
Actually that’s not their slogan anymore , it save money live better. I know, I see about 12,000 Walmart commercials a day lately, on every channel, and on the radio.
It’s a common marketing ploy though. People assume double packs are cheaper so they nail all they ones to lazy to look.
Ol Big D got some Walmart issues going on.
IMO Saving more money makes the person smarter!
If I didn’t shop at walmart the nearest retailer of any worth is a 2 1/2 hour drive away. Not everyone who shops at walmart is a redneck or enjoys nascar.
I’ve always shopped at Walmart. I don’t give a shit. If I can save money on something, I’ll do it.
$2.50 for the single is most likely a clearance price as the single is maybe being discontinued or changed to a different size? (Shrink ray incoming!)
I agree. They are trying to clear out of the NBA themed ones since the season is over.
Good call, I hadn’t even noticed the NBA logo.
That was the first thing I noticed.
i think they meant Buy 2 and Save for later.
This seems to be common with cat litter, where the per-pound cost of a medium (13 lb) container is less than the per-pound cost of the large (25 lb) container. Usually the difference is a few pennies.
What! Nobody has found a lawyer to file a class action lawsuit againt P&G and Walmart for false advertising!?!?
Most people don’t do the math. I bought an 18oz can a freon with hose/gauge for $21 over the weekend. The 22oz can was $32 but was in a much larger can, had brighter labeling and a “sale” sign. The shelf was full of the 18oz cans but the 22oz can were almost gone.
I’m just gonna come out and say it. There are fewer and fewer “news items” of the actual consumer news and issues that I took notice of and came to love this site for. I really have a very hard time recommending this place to people who want to actually be informed consumers any longer. To top it off, the actual article quality has declined in a very noticeable manner, with clear and obvious errors in spelling and grammar, duplicated sentences (or portions thereof), incorrect names of entities involved, and other issues showing up on a constant basis.
This site is going downhill. Fast.
At least this one wasn’t about goatse rings.
You’re speaking to deaf ears, my friend
This is because it is men’s deodorant. If you go over to the women’s I can guarantee that the twin pack price is the same and its a deal to purchase the twins because the single packs are probably priced around $3.50. I’ve seen it in Target, the mens and womens twin packs are priced the same but there is a disparity in the price of the single deodorants, mens are cheaper than womens.
I’ll take a picture of both next time I encounter it since no one seems to.
I noticed this the other day with sugar.
A 2 pound bag was under $2 ($1.97 I think) and a 4 pound bag was slightly over $4. I don’t remember exactly, but the difference wasn’t much, like $0.20 more for the 4 pound bag, but still.
It pays to do the math.
Publix’s per-unit pricing is similarly maddening, especially on their brand. 8 oz containers of sour cream, for example, are almost half the price per ounce as the large containers. I feel bad about wasting all the extra packaging, but not bad enough to spend more for a larger tub.
I groggily wandered into Walmart last night for this very item and didn’t even notice this. Thankfully, I decided on just one.
Even though I was not suckered by this, I feel dumb that I didn’t catch it.