Not so long ago, Southwest began readjusting the seats on its fleet of Boeing 737 jets, getting rid of 1″ of legroom for each passenger in order to squeeze in an additional six seats. Your initial thoughts might be that this a lot of work for just a few more seats, but when you add it up, you’re talking nearly three quarters of a billion dollars a year. [More]
Look Out: Dog Food Shrink Ray In Progress
By May 14, 2013
Reader Beltran noticed this shrink raying in progress at a Tops store. Oh, Iams dog food wasn’t staying the exact same price while shaving off a few ounces (or pounds, as the case is here): they’re trickier than that. Instead, like a less extreme example of the Baker’s chocolate shrinkage that we brought you on Friday, the sticker price is a little lower, but the price per pound for the food rises slightly. [More]
Baker’s Chocolate Shrink Rays Package From 8 Ounces To 4, Raises Price At Least 50%
By May 10, 2013
Julia was baking from scratch with her kids, and she dispatched them to the store to buy a glorious quantity of chocolate. Two boxes of Baker’s unsweetened chocolate. You know, sixteen ounces. The kids came back with two boxes of chocolate, but only eight ounces total. Julia reports that she had paid $3.99 for the eight-ounce bar, and her kids paid $3.38 for each four-ounce bar. That’s a pretty potent blast from the Grocery Shrink Ray. [More]
welcome aboard mr. managerThere’s always money in the banana stand, and there’s always publicity in setting up a global network of banana stands to promote the Netflix-exclusive new season of “Arrested Development.”An actual Bluth’s Frozen Banana stand is currently open for business, popping up in various spots in London. On Monday, it will come to New York. After that? Who knows? [More]
Has OXY Face Wash Been Zapped By The Grocery Shrink Ray?
By May 3, 2013
While many items zapped by the Grocery Shrink Ray — which reduces a product’s size but magically keeps the price the same — are the things you love to eat and drink, it’s sometimes the stuff you put on your body that falls victim to the Ray’s reductive ways. [More]
Pringles Multi-Grain Changes Packaging, Size, Grains Under New Owners
By April 25, 2013
Joe is a fan of Multi-Grain Pringles, and he noticed something interesting when he bought a new can. Everything had changed. The snack had slightly different ingredients, different packaging, and of course…had been ever so slightly zapped by the Grocery Shrink Ray. [More]
Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds
By April 12, 2013
Yesterday, at Consumerist HQ, we were very sad to learn about the death of one of the regulars here around the site in both the comments section and the Flickr pool. She also brought Cracker Barrel’s crimes against maple to our attention, and had an unrivaled love of our weekly open threads. Kimaroo died unexpectedly of pneumonia earlier this week, at the age of only 28. As a small tribute, before the Flickr Finds, here are some of our favorite pictures of hers that we used over the years. They are, of course, of her totally handsome cats, Bastien and Alfred. [More]
Starbucks To Cut Price Of Bagged Coffee By $1 Next Month Because The Caffeine Gods Said So
By April 12, 2013
Rarely do we see a spot of good news in the grocery aisle — products shrink, prices go up, everyone makes a frowny face — but today is different. We’re not sure if there are caffeine gods, or if they’re responsible for Starbucks’ decision to cut the price of their bagged coffee by about a buck, but it’s happening in any case. [More]
Russell Stover Chocolate Peanut Butter Bunny Disappoints On Both Counts
By April 9, 2013
Ed sent us these chocolate bunny photos after lunchtime on Monday, which we’re assuming means that he bought them on post-Easter clearance. Even if he did, that doesn’t give Russel Stover an excuse to sell him a skimpy bunny with a meager amount of peanut butter inside. [More]
Shrink Ray Blasts Old Spice Deodorant, Leading To Stench And Sadness
By April 8, 2013
Andrew is a regular user of Old Spice deodorant, so he noticed when a packaging change also meant a sizing change. And no, it was not the same brand/fragrance scramble that led another Old Spice user to think that his deodorant, too, had fallen prey to the shrink ray. Nope. This is the same product. [More]
Rothbury Farms Crunches One Ounce Off Bags Of Croutons
By April 5, 2013
Croutons are so light and crunchy that you probably won’t notice a missing ounce. At least, that’s what they’re probably hoping at Rothbury Farms. Alert reader and crouton-eater John sent in this comparison of their old and new bags of croutons, where a lighter color and the same size bag masks the shrink rayage of the package. [More]
The Difference Between Family Size And Party Size Doritos: One Ounce
By March 14, 2013
Grocery shopping recently, reader Joseph noticed something interesting: there were two different types of Doritos bags on the shelf that were very close in size, but the same price. The Grocery Shrink Ray is nothing new, but the bags came in two varieties: the positively economical seventeen-ounce “Family Size,” then the small and portable sixteen-ounce “Party Size.” Wait, what? [More]
Aldi Hits Kid’s Krunch Cereal With Sugary, Sugary Shrink Ray
By February 25, 2013
Matthew was shopping for cereal at Aldi when he noticed something interesting. The boxes of Kid’s Krunch cereal had recently been redesigned, and both versions were on the shelf, side-by-side. That’s a nice opportunity to do some comparisons. Unfortunately for Aldi, what he noticed while comparing the old and new boxes was that the cereal just happened to have lost a few ounces in the process. Oh no––the dreaded Grocery Shrink Ray has come to Aldi! [More]
The End Of Saturday Mail Delivery Is Awesome For Netflix, Not So Much For DVD Customers
By February 7, 2013
While there are plenty of people greeting the looming end of Saturday mail delivery with a shrug (“Less junk mail on the weekends, awesome!”) there are those out there who see the change as a significant upset in a valued service. They are the DVD-by-mail customers, the ones who try to squeeze every bit out of their subscriptions. And yes, some people do still get DVDs. Ahem. [More]
Pizza Hut Horning In On Bagel Bites’ Territory With New Mini Sliders
By February 4, 2013
Fans of Bagel Bites have known for a long time that when it comes to pizza, the tinier the serving, the better. Because if the pizza is delivered in miniature offerings, the calories don’t count, right?* Now Pizza Hut is moving in on the beloved freezer snack’s territory with the debut of its Mini Sliders, a new offering the chain unveiled after the Super Bowl last night. [More]
Garnier Assumes Surfers Can’t Do Math, Zaps Hair Stuff With 40% Shrink Ray
By January 25, 2013
Going by comments and reviews on the Garnier Fructis website, there are a lot of people (mostly men) who are very upset that Garnier Fructis’s Surf Hair product disappeared from the market without warning. There are a lot fewer people wandering around with artfully messy short hair achieved at a reasonable price. Karl was happy to find the product on the shelf, but less happy to discover that the formerly 5.1 ounce jar now contains only 3 ounces, even though the container itself is the same size. [More]
NYC Unveils Newest In Teeny Tiny Living With Winning Micro-Unit Apartment Design
By January 23, 2013
Just a few months ago, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg put out a request to designers to try and figure out how to shrink down an apartment to its legally smallest size for a new “micro-unit” building, and now the winning design has been chosen in all its teeny tiny glory. It’ll be perfect for anyone sipping a small soda on their cute little couch, see? [More]
What A Difference An Inch Makes: Report Says Some Subway Footlongs Are Only 11 Inches
By January 17, 2013
What you pay for should be what you get, which is why some Subway customers are up in arms that they’re not getting their money’s worth. See, they didn’t pay for 11- or 11.5-inch subs. Nope, they paid for a footlong, meaning 12 inches, and if a new (albeit totally unscientific) report is true, customers are routinely being shorted. [More]
