Why do people buy those rubbish batteries from Poundland?

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Earlier on, I disposed my batteries into a battery bin in my local supermarket. I say 90% of the batteries were these nasty batteries with hardly any power at all. Have used them in the past in a tv remote and changing channels twice and muted - batteries were dead. Yet a battery costing 4 times as much lasts 50 plus times.

Then as these cheap batteries are made from zinc, they can leak. Which damages the product.

If people keep buying cheap batteries and need to replace them very regularly, they haven’t cottoned onto that these batteries are false economy.

Honestly batteries are so expensive, you aren't thinking necessarily about longevity, but about your bank account when you're buying them

I only splash out at Christmas for dd's toys, otherwise I buy the cheap ones 🙈

It's the Boots theory.

The Sam Vimes theory of socioeconomic unfairness, often called simply the boots theory, is an economic theory that people in poverty have to buy cheap and subpar products that need to be replaced repeatedly, proving more expensive in the long run than more expensive items.

You have one of the oddest track history of threads OP (I couldn’t resist an advanced search 😆)

If it's for an item that's hardly ever used, you may as well buy the cheepo ones as batteries go dead if they're not used over time. May as well only pay a small amount if that's the case.

Agree about the waste though. They're pretty rubbish usually.

There’s a cost of living crisis on, that’s why.

I bought 36 Alkaline AA from Amazon - their own make for £10.50. They have excellent reviews. You probably get a third of the batteries the same price in supermarkets

So true. It's far more expensive to live if you are on lower wages. You can't take advantage of multi buy offers as you can't afford to bulk order and may not even have the space, you have to go for things like top up meters which are much more expensive, you often have to let house deterioration get worse which ultimately costs more, you have to save for every item which due to inflation then costs you more, less choices of mortgage companies as many won't work with you etc etc.

You could apply that to things like laundry detergent. Sometimes for £2 more you can buy a box with 45 capsules v 25 one

I buy them. They work fine for what I use them for - including an old portable CD player that's famous for sucking power.
Strange thread.

Alkaline batteries - even the cheap ones - have a very low self-discharge rate (which is why they have a shelf life of 10 years or more) and don't leak until they go flat.

If you want to ruin your equipment, leave it switched on with alkaline batteries in. They leak because the case is one of the electrodes and gets eaten away as they are used up.

Zinc carbon batteries have a higher self-discharge rate and will leak faster.