Deception

On my way home after work a few evenings ago, I had to stop in at the local Pick n Pay for a few essentials. My soap of choice is (or was) Protex Fresh simply because I like the fresh scent after my daily showers, especially after gym. I’ve been using it almost from the time it was first launched and never had any reason to grumble.

The soap is shaped with a convex bottom, which had nothing to do with why I used it but is pertinent to my story.

A few days previously I had tried to buy some soap but there had been no Protex Fresh. I still had another new bar at home so it was no train smash. As I picked up a couple of bars though, I noticed something different about them. The wrapping seemed looser and the bottoms seemed to be more convex than usual. Puzzled, I put the soap in my basket with a few other odd items, paid and left the store. Driving home however, this little incident buzzed around my brain like a bored fly… there was something wrong with this picture.

Then it dawned on me.

“I bet they’ve reduced the weight of the soap bar by carving out more of the convex shape, thus charging the same amount of money for less soap and actually making a larger margin on each bar.”

So when I got home, I dug the old wrapper out of the bin and compared it to the bars of soap I’d just bought. Sure enough, the old bars weighted 200g and the new slim-waisted shape was only 175g. They’d reduced the weight of each bar by an eighth. Or were making an extra 12.5 per cent on each bar!

I was pretty miffed, to put it mildly. I know retailers will justify this sort of thing as ‘normal’ business but in my opinion it is deceitful. Why not simply charge more and let the consumer decide whether or not they will continue buying that brand.

You’d think that was the end of the story. I wish it was. But it gets worse.

To be sure of my facts and to make sure I had not jumped the gun (as I had not considered the possibility that the price had dropped by a corresponding amount – I had not looked at the price when I took the soap off the shelf) I checked the receipt expecting to see R6.99. You can imagine the unpleasant surprise I got when I found that not only had the weight of the bar been reduced, but the price had increased to an astonishing R10.49!

I was incensed!

Just by reducing the weight of the soap Pick n Pay and the manufacturers, Colgate-Palmolive, were making an extra 12.5 per cent or approximately 87 cents. As if that wasn’t enough, they had added a further R3.50 to the price, thus generating an additional R4.37 of profit! If we combine the reduction of weight and the increased price, Pick n Pay and Colgate-Palmolive are sharing a 72 per cent increase in the price of Protex Fresh soap.

I was dumbfounded…

In these tough economic times, how do they justify the deceitful nature of the weight reduction in the product – in virtually the same packaging (they have added a payoff line about the soap eliminating 99 per cent of bacteria or something to that effect) which no one will notice unless, like me they still had the old version too – let alone justifying a whopping 72 per cent increase in overall profit?

How does Pick n Pay explain this sort of rapacious profiteering with their pay off line of “Inspired by You”?

It really is sickening.

If I’ve caught them out on one product you can bet your bottom rand it’s happening on hundreds, if not thousands, of other products.

Of course they’re entitled to make a profit and though I’ve never been taken in by the ‘warm and fuzzy’ PR all the big retailers spew onto our TV screens every night trying to convince everyone they’re there for you and me, surely there is a conscionable limit to how much they squeeze from the man in the street?

Yes, Pick and Pay and Colgate-Palmolive are businesses, answerable only to their shareholders but when will enough be enough? When will they be satisfied with static or even reduced dividends over the last financial year but still healthy dividends nonetheless?

How proud do the shareholders of each company feel by adding to their wealth by such deceitful means?

Of course it’s not against the law (although it should be) and the boards of both companies will rationalise their methods in the most jingoistic jargonistic fashion that it is “only business” but for heaven’s sake, what are the boundaries of their greed to have to resort to this manner of profiteering? Even if they are not illegal how do these companies make such decisions in good conscience?

I can imagine the Board of Colgate-Palmolive sitting back in their plush leather chairs as their marketing and financial directors point lasers at presentations…

“So, by designing a new mold, we will reduce the weight of the soap by one-full-eighth, which will be unnoticeable in the packaging and we will make a further 12.5 per cent profit,” says the marketing man proudly.

“But that’s not all!” Interjects the financial guru, desperate to share the glory, “We will increase the retail price, Pick n Pay and the other chains will sell them for an additional R3.50, giving us a whopping 72 per cent increase in profit to share with our retailers. How’s that for a Christmas bonus!?” And the Board members nod their heads vigorously in agreement and say unanimously, “Do it!”

Then we cut to a Pick n Pay board meeting. “Here’s a good one,” enthuses their pricing boffin! “Colgate-Palmolive has reworked one of their soap’s molds, which results in a 12.5 per cent increase in profit. But if we sell it at R10.49, our profits go up to a stratospheric 72 per cent! Isn’t that awesome?!” And the whole board rubs their hands in glee… “Oh goody! How soon can we change the pricing?”

We all complain about the inefficiencies of government and tax for what often appears to be simply for the sake of tax and increasing ‘profits’ of various departments and parastatals like Eskom, but how can we hold government accountable if our ‘respected’ business ‘leaders’ go to such duplicitous lengths to squeeze the long-suffering public for such exorbitant profits?

Pick n Pay and Colgate-Palmolive… shame on both of you!

@FullCircleSean