#35 – Scarcity
Posted on January 21, 2011 at 12:00 am by Chris
Chapter: Comic
I don’t drink soda very often so when I go to purchase some I’m always thrown by their pricing. Apparently now the concept is that the smaller the container it comes in the more expensive it will be. I keep running across stores that will have 20 ounce bottles in a cooler on a shelf right above 1 liter bottles and they will all cost exactly the same. Are the smaller bottles more expensive per ounce because of some sort of miniaturization technology?
Tags: unicorns
No Chris, it is marketing black magic. One we shall never know.
I noticed the same thing about soda. A two-liter bottle in the main shelves of the store is cheaper than a 20 ounce bottle near the checkout. Maybe it’s for the “convenience” of a smaller bottle…?
Or, of course, because people will pay that much for it, so they charge that much.
What do the onions get used for after the unicorn cut them, I wonder?
It’s eye-level and convenience marketing.
You’ve been shopping for a while, didn’t think you’d want the 2-liters because there’s so much.
Then you get to the end of your escapade in the store and notice while waiting in line that the cooled, refreshing sodas are just what you need, and they’re the perfect size, too! That $2.00 doesn’t make a big enough dent in most people’s wallets for them to realize it.
If you can’t tell, I am (was, sorta, something) a business major, and I ALSO worked in a grocery store for 5 years.
I don’t exactly get problems like that, mostly because the place where I shop almost always has at least one size or type of cola on special. So I just go ahead and buy about 10 bottles to accommodate my soft drink consumption.
Packaging and shipping makes up most of the cost of most sodas; the soda itself costs almost nothing to make. Making, filling and shipping a few big bottles is a lot cheaper than doing the same with a lot of little bottles. That’s why the bigger ones cost so much less per unit of actual product.
(I learned this reading a book about beer. It applies to a whole lot of products, not just soda.)
Also, as a general rule the smaller bottles are refridgerated, which adds to their cost.
I think I got a bit of an extra laugh out of this comic when I thought about it and realized that there was an extra level of humour here (intentional or not). The reason onions make your eyes water is that something released when cutting the onion makes acid form in your eyes, irritating them so they water to flush it out. Hence these unicorn tears would be way to acidic to be of the high quality they need, making there be a giant source of unusable tears.
I’ve never used unicorn tears in my cooking/magic potions/sexytimes [Delete as appropriate]. Does mild acidity render them useless, then?
The active ingredient in Unicorn tears is basic.
I thought Unicorn Tears were Fortran.
Sorry about the double post but I notice you just can’t quite get away from having the eyebrow extend beyond the face (panel 2) :D.
I always assumed it was because you pay extra for the convenience of having the beverage nicely chilled for you instead of having to go home and stick it in the fridge for a couple of hours. Or add ice, I suppose…
Yea, I’m pretty sure they charge more for the small bottles because they’re cold.
Funny, when I imagined it I thought of stabbing a unicorn with it’s own horn or something along similar lines.
~Gwid
Here’s another fun and related comparison.
Look at the price of a bottle of soda and a similarly sized bottle of water. Then decide how much sugar and flavorings cost.
If you compare Coke and Daisani Water you’re even comparing within the same manufacturer.
Yes. The water is usually more expensive.
Yes, but you forget that water has to be extra purified before they bottle it up and sell it.
Jay: No, not really. Most bottled water comes from tap water.
The same tap water your city gives you.
The extra purification stuff is marketing BS.
I once read a list of “thing you should be glad your car doesn’t run on” (based on the fact that all these things were more expensive per litre than petrol), and mineral water was pretty high on the list.
The outright winner, though, was printer ink.
Unicorn tears…Tragically magical.
I buy DVDs from Japan and I am collecting the shows so that I can legally watch them. (I have the technology, don’t ask why, I’m embarrassed to admit that I was part of a two against one rivalry between personal computers and game consoles) However, a one-disc DVD with two to six episodes of a cartoon or live action drama can vary. My first DVD was of the original shows that started Power Rangers (called Super Sentai and that’s with an S). That DVD cost me $75 all together.
So yes, if I want to want Japanese entertainment as it originally was, I’d had to pay through the nose. Luckily, I save my money for bigger items.
Getting the tears is easy; BOTTLING the things is what’s expensive! (poor unicorn) :’-(
Right, I would imagine there’s no easy way to approach a Unicorn holding a knife.