Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2020 February 29

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February 29

toothpaste tube shrinkage

Why have the sizes of the "standard" toothpaste tubes SHRINKED from 8.0 oz to 6.4 oz and now 5.7 oz ( or lower!)? 67.167.126.76 (talk) 15:54, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

For the same reason that many items have seen a reduction in "standard" size while maintaining the same price, profit. For example, ice cream in the United States used to be sold primarily in cartons that held half a gallon. These have since been replaced by 1.75 liter or even 1.5 liter packages without a price reduction.--Khajidha (talk) 17:39, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

• Clarification for non-US readers: 1/2 US gallon is about 1.89 liters. --69.159.8.46 (talk) 03:48, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

• ...and a liter is really a litre. (Sorry, couldn't help myself.) And an oz is around 28 grams. HiLo48 (talk) 03:57, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia Has An Article On Everything!: see Shrinkflation (by the way, "toothpaste tubes SHRANK" or "toothpaste tubes HAVE SHRUNK" would be better, but even Walt Disney got it wrong). Alansplodge (talk) 18:03, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

This is sometimes called the "grocery shrink ray", which gets lots of good search hits. 2602:24A:DE47:B270:A096:24F4:F986:C62A (talk) 00:51, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't know over what period those above toothpaste tube shrinkages occured, and Shrinkflation is certainly a thing, but one could argue that smaller standard product sizes can be more appropriate in these days of smaller average household sizes than used to exist. Of course, it would be nice if smaller prices accompanied the smaller products. HiLo48 (talk) 03:02, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

"Colgate [in the USA] is just in the process now of reducing the size of its largest tube of regular toothpaste from 8.2 ounces to 8.0 ounces" (May 16, 2016). [1] Alansplodge (talk) 21:15, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

A tiny (ha!) word of warning: not everything that is smaller implies an inflated price. Consider telephones, where smaller goes hand-in-hand with superior performance, decade after decade. DOR (HK) (talk)

It's also worth noting that some products include bulking agents, for example washing powders, so shrinking these by changing the formulation is good for everyone. All the best: Rich Farmbrough (the apparently calm and reasonable) 13:15, 5 March 2020 (UTC).