Ripped off at Sherwin WIlliams

[Doug Kanter]

Because you're complaining about package size as if it were hidden from you somehow. Something sneaky. The only to make it clear is to (ready?) make it clear. I suggested two ways of doing so, both of which you consider silly.

By doing so, you're saying that you consider it unethical to shrink a package. The only way for them to deal with increasing costs is to raise their prices, as far as you're concerned.

But: I explained to you that customers have certain perceptions - certain price levels beyond which they simply will not buy a product. Manufacturers know what these perceptions are, based on research and product movement data. I asked you where YOUR limit was for a half gallon of ice cream. You refused to respond sensibly.

We've covered almost every angle that I had to deal with in a series of business courses. Same debates YOU would be subjected to if you were the CEO of a corporation and your board of directors called you on the carpet to discuss profitability issues. But, you seem to think these ideas originated in the twilight zone. Do you want to continue, or would you like to discuss it in exactly the same way you would if you were working on your MBA from Harvard?

[Edwin Pawlowski]

" OK, enough already. I stopped at the Sherwin Williams tore this morning (on my way to another paint store) and checked the actual sizes on the containers. The base for tinting is marked 3 11/16 quarts. The pre-colored already mixed on the shelf containers is 3 27/32 quarts.

How many "gallons" of paint do they sell in a year? At a million containers it amounts to 39,062 gallons. If the manufacturing cost is $5 a gallon, that is $195,312 in added profits. Not bad considering the efforts of changing a label and adjusting a filler machine.

Most of their other product are still a full gallon.

[Doug Miller]

Changing the subject again...

[snip]

Liar. I never said it was "evil". And I explicitly said it is *not* deceptive.

*YOU* said it was deceptive.

[Doug Miller]

Stop putting words in my mouth, Kanter. I never said that, and you know it.

[Doug Miller]

It *is* sneaky to repackage your product in a carton that's *nearly* the same size but twelve percent smaller, and sell it at the same price.

They *are* silly.

I didn't say that.

I declined to respond, because the question is silly and irrelevant.

[Doug Kanter]

No. We've been talking about costs you cannot control. Fuel/transportation is one such cost.

OK. Perhaps you're right. But, you definitely HAVE been pointing to increased profits as something you view as a negative reason for decreasing package size.

[Doug Kanter]

Can you describe ANY way to shrink a package that would NOT be sneaky?

Why silly?

I've told you that there are costs which cannot be controlled. Therefore, size must decrease or price must increase. You don't like sizes being changed, as you've repeated a number of times. That leaves price increases as the only option. You may not have said it explicitly, but since there is no other option, you've agreed to it.

Customer perceptions (and YOUR perceptions) are silly and irrelevant? Why?

[Duane Bozarth]

Well, you'll be pleased to learn this is as it has always been w/ base for tint--there's room left to make the full gallon w/ the tint.

To be sure, I just checked on several really, really old (some as much as approaching 25-30 yrs) from several manufacturers including S-W. tint bases were from 126 to 128 oz. A couple of cans of finish exterior white which were a tint base were full gallons. One of those was also S-W, btw...

[Doug Miller]

Certainly. If you're reducing the package size by 1/8, the straightforward way to do it is to keep width and depth the same, and reduce length by 1/8. A side-by-side comparison of the larger and smaller packages makes the difference instantly obvious. The sneaky way to do it is with a 4.4% reduction in each dimension, which is scarcely noticeable, and even if noticed would hardly be suspected by the average person as resulting in a 12.5% decrease in package volume.

Come off it, Kanter, who advertises his product as "Now! Less for your money!" That's silly.

I didn't say that either. I said I don't like package sizes being changed in a way that disguises the change.

Wow! Two falsehoods in one! There *are* other options (e.g. cutting costs), and no, I didn't agree to it.

Again... I didn't say that. You keep attributing to me things I didn't say, and then demand that I justify them.

No, Kanter, _your_questions_ are silly and irrelevant. I thought that was clear.

[Doug Miller]

Actually, we were talking about disguising price increases by shrinking the packages. *Do* try to pay attention a bit more closely.

Is that as close as you can come to an apology for distorting my words into the _exact_opposite_ of what I actually wrote?

I don't view "increased profits" as negative; rather, I take a negative view of the greed that drives a company to increase its profits by providing its customers with less value.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Well you'll be sorry to learn this. The tint base was 3 11/16 quarts but the ready mixed colors are 3 27/32. Yes, they are shorting what was formerly known as a "gallon" of paint. This was on the line in question. Some others were still a full gallon.

[phlegmatico]

If they're successfully being greedy, how come their stock price doesn't show it. How come YOU haven't bought the stock? Oh, wait, because of your higher moral grounds? Hang on, i'll save a place for your portrait in the Chappaquiddick Museum of Fighting For The People

The people who put their money where their mouth is, apparently feel that the shrinking-package syndrome is just playing catch-up with external costs.

You don't have the balls.

[meirman]

In alt.home.repair on Fri, 29 Jul 2005 19:01:15 GMT "Doug Kanter" posted:

Not the best example. Most people can cut down on ice cream, but being less hungry, and less dirty are very hard to do. Cutting down on beans, detergent, and toilet paper, because the same money buys less will just leave people needing more sooner, regardless of how much money they have.

Meirman

-- If emailing, please let me know whether or not you are posting the same letter. Change domain to erols.com, if necessary.

[Duane Bozarth]

I don't think that necessarily shows it's any different than previous, however, does it?

Were any that were "full" gallons marked a tint base? I'd suspect not.

In most instances, starting from 126 oz, say, the net would still be somewhat under 132 even after tinting. So, if they've "pre-tinted" from the tint base quantity, it's still likely to be what you would always have gotten starting from the tint base and custom tinting.

IOW, a "gallon" hasn't always been a gallon and the amount "short" in the OP's note is the same amount short as has been shown for an extended period of time.

I suppose it is possible a pre-tinted before (other than the basic white) have been marketed in 132 oz gal, but I have no old examples of that to compare with. My suspicion is that they don't make any distinction in manufacturing and use the tint base volumes in order to achieve simplicity of manufacture of consistency of color.

[meirman]

In alt.home.repair on Fri, 29 Jul 2005 21:59:31 GMT "Doug Kanter" posted:

My mother told me she would hear an advertisement or see a product at $7.99. To make it simple, she would think $8. Then later she wouldn't remember if it were 7.99 or 8.99, and would often remember the price a dollar higher than it was. The opposite effect of what they wanted.

There was a big outrage when they started messing with the size of coffee packages. That was about 30? years ago?

It wasn't 7/19ths of an ounce. It was 5/32nds of a quart which is about 8 times as much. It's almost 4% of the entire gallon. Other than that, I agree with you.

Another difference about paint is that that is one product whose package size hasn't varied for my whole life and probably much longer.

People are used to it with candy.

Also, when one runs out of candy no one says, Look, there's a corner of your stomach that isn't covered in candy.

Meirman

-- If emailing, please let me know whether or not you are posting the same letter. Change domain to erols.com, if necessary.

[meirman]

In alt.home.repair on Sat, 30 Jul 2005 12:57:20 GMT "Doug Kanter" posted:

A private owner can sacrifice profits to do what is right, without anyone to complain about it (except maybe his wife.)

But corporate CEOs and boards are always saying they have a duty to the stockholders to maximize profits. I wonder how true that is, in law and in practice.

This is what little I know about it. The law could be both stricter and/or more lenient than in practice. I think it can both at the same time, but in different ways, of course.

The law might provide exceptions, probably does provide leeway, but that doesn't mean that stockholders were settle for less than the maximum. OTOH, in practice most stockholder pay little attention to what is going on, and only a few big ones do pay attention, most of the time. And very few vote against board nominees, nor do they have much chance of electing an opposition slate except when things are very bad.

Acting the "right" way is good for customer relations, even if it is only done because it is right, so decisions about "truth in packaging" are probably never a violation of the management's duty to maximize profits. OTOH, at the end of the line, stockholders won't care what went wrong if the company is losing money or making a lot less than it did. (How is Sherwin Williams doing financially?) Like owners not caring why a team is losing when he fires the coach. But team owners are different because usually one person makes the decision.

I've been to one corporate annual meeting, a Fortune 500 company but I forget which. All I remember is that the meeting was west of Rutgers University in NJ. (at some big community college or community auditorium iirc.) One dissenter wanted a vote on something, maybe enviornmental although I think it was not that but similar. She didn't even get to make a speech. This is typical iiuc. But they did have a nice buffet in the "lobby?".

Meirman

-- If emailing, please let me know whether or not you are posting the same letter. Change domain to erols.com, if necessary.

[Duane Bozarth]

Actually, after I posted before, I realized the numbers here grossly larger than the historical values so I do agree this is "shorting" and is to be regretted that S-W has chosen to mask their cost increases in such a manner... :(

[Doug Kanter]

Side by side comparison. OK. You wrote that yesterday. I assume that by now, you've realized why it's unlikely you'd have an opportunity for such a comparison. There are at least two reasons.

Nope. If you've already cut costs as much as possible in the area of labor, and raw materials you CAN control, there are still some things you cannot change. No avenue left but to adjust size or price.

What business are you in???

[Mortimer Schnerd, RN]

It never seems to bother them when their negotiating their own compensation packages. Just this last week there was some media coverage of the former Delta Airlines CEO who managed to get a multi-year multi-million dollar "consulting fee" thaat included clauses to prevent the consultations from being either inconvenient nor taking very much of his time. All it took was a lot of stockholder money.

There ought to be a law mandating the maximum amount of compensation allowed in publicly held corporations directly tied to the income of their average employee. In Japan, the CEOs of the largest corporations make 7-10 times that of their average employee; here it can run 100s of times.

Don't tell me you have to offer 100s of times the average salary to attract the best. I'm sure they're not interested in earning what the average man makes and will accept what you offer on top of that. Even if they wouldn't, what have you lost? Most of these overpaid CEOs seem to be running their companies into the ground. The CEO of Delta didn't set the world on fire with anything except his exit package.

[Doug Miller]

Guessing games again, Kanter?

Unjustified assumption on your part. That's a big IF.

No, there are at least two other things you can do as well.

Irrelevant.