To wonder if anybody ever buys the smaller, dearer ones

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

Asda in particular, but they're probably not the only ones, seem to have permanent offers/rollbacks etc on certain lines - but only on one size of exactly the same product. This means that you can usually buy a bigger pack (often twice the size or thereabouts) for less money than the smaller one. I don't mean less money per 100g/ml etc - charging 60p for 100g or £1 for 200g makes commercial sense to me - I mean the price for the whole of the bigger one is actually less than the price for the whole of the smaller one (or the converse, whereby you're quite considerably penalised if you bulk buy and get a bigger one rather than 2 or even 3 of the half-sized ones).

What is the sense of this? Does anybody actually buy the smaller ones? Are they effectively carrying a whole shelf of dead, unsellable stock (unless the big ones have all sold out and people don't feel swizzed enough to deliberately not buy the small one on principle)? Don't the supermarkets notice that they haven't sold any and wonder why people seem to love Big X but hate Small X?

And on a similar note, you sometimes see big brands on promotion meaning that they're the same price (or a penny or two cheaper or dearer) as the own-brand versions. Do people still buy the own-brands when this is the case? Again, are they giving valuable shelf space to a line that will most probably not sell for as long as the branded promotion is on?

Am I the only one baffled by these admittedly non-earth-shattering phenomena?

My grandmother always did. She felt she couldn’t eat the whole thing herself and didn’t want to either feel pressurised to eat more (when she didn’t want or need to) or to waste it.

I have when I’ve had bad eating disorders.

My MIL would never buy the value/special offer or BOG. People might think she's "poor" or "common".

Sometimes I have to if the larger one is heavy or difficult to carry (e.g. big box of washing powder or large pack of toilet roll) because I don’t have a car so I have to buy what I can’t carry home.

I said "If I buy it, I'll eat it all."

That's how people get fat.

Part of it is to do with units sold which is a sales measurement tool. You would be surprised how dysfunctional some of the sales and marketing tools and measurements. OK so volume sold has increased by 25% but we have made less profit???

I check the price of just about everything I buy but I know many people that don't either because they don't need to or can't be bothered.

Even my DH wouldn't bother to check everything if he were shopping on his own. He also just tends to look at the middle and top shelves whereas I know that most of the time the cheaper items are on the bottom shelves. Own brand biscuits, for instance, are almost always on the bottom shelf and are much cheaper than known brands and yet usually taste exactly the same.

We rarely buy things like crisps but if we do we buy the big packs. We both can just eat one bag each maybe once or twice a week so works out cheaper for us.

If you don't look at prices you can easily get caught out. One instance is baked beans. People assume the 4 pack will work out cheaper than buying 4 individuals cans but often it works out dearer to buy the pack

Ive also noticed the opposite though oh look at this big pack for example £3 for 500grams or £1.50 for 350grams people assume wrongly the bigger size is better value i check labels on every item i buy to not get caught out luckily i can afford to over but to save money down the line and storage space I hate to over pay.

I do check the prices of things. However, I live alone, have a small flat with a tiny kitchenette, a 50cm wide 2-drawer freezer so little space to store things. I also have no car and carpal tunnel syndrome, so schlepping large quantities of things can be an issue. I was looking at juice today and a 1.5 litre was 60p while the 0.5 litre was 85p. But I probably wouldn't get through the large bottle before it went off; if I carried it, I would have to buy fewer other things; and you can't put a litre of the 1.5 litres in the food bank...

I buy smaller boxes of cereal because I don’t really have room to store big boxes and it keeps it fresher in my opinion.

And kitchen paper....I buy the cheapest rolls I can, checking the cost per 100 sheets. Why would you pay nearly three times the price for something you are going to put in the bin as soon as you have used it?

It depends what you use it for and how. I used to do the same, the absolute cheapest, but DS and I did an experiment and found that when we bought a more premium brand (which was hardly any more as we bought it from a pound shop type place) we actually used over a third less every week. The sheets were thicker and stronger and we discovered we would use one where we would use 2 of the cheapo one.
So its not always so obvious.Same with toilet paper, we know longer use the very cheapest brand.

If you have to walk or get the bus quite often you can't carry the larger, better value packs. Another way in which it costs more to be poor...

I'm a buyer. It's down to bulk buying. Asda will buy a mega massive shipment of Tetley 240 packs so whichever corporation own Tetley will charge less per pack. They order hardly any 80 bags so will pay more per pack.

Then they stick them on end caps so the store looks cheap.

Only when travelling do I tend to buy smaller of anything.
I tend to buy most things in bulk, but when going on holiday I’ll go to budgens etc and buy the shit bottles of person that cost 6 ish for about 10 washes- I hate it especially when I go to Costco and buy two of the biggest ones at about double the price. But I can’t risk going on holiday and having to use a washing liquid that might bring DH or DD out in a rash.

I do think it’s awful though, FIl just grabs whatever’s on offer, it’s often more expensive but seeing as he can’t read he doesn’t really have the skills to figure out the Ml/g/kilo weight and price.

Occasionally I’ll do it because I don’t want the large box/bottle in the cupboard. Our kitchen is very small and there’s nowhere else to store food items. Only one person eats ketchup, for example, and not much of it, so I buy the small bottle even if it’s the same price as the big bottle 🤷🏻‍♀️

There’s a bit more storage for non food items so I’ll buy bigger packs if it’s something we use a lot of (paper towel, loo roll etc) but not if it’s something rarely used but takes up a lot of space (multi packs of a cleaning product you only use a few drops of). I just want a small bottle in the cupboard.

I think some people make a conscious decision to do it, but that many just grab their regular product & size without checking.

Sometimes you really have to have your wits about you regarding the offers. Once in Tescos they had the old McVities digestive packets (the 500g ones) selling for £1.12 but buy 2 for £2 so far so good but I then noticed that they were selling the twin packs (2 wrapped together) for £1.89 Wished I had taken photos of them now.