Vitamins

[610Alpha]

Opened up a new bottle of vitamins the other day and I noticed something odd, well odd to me. The bottle was only 2/3 full. To me this seems to be a waste of material, imho, either fill it full or make a smaller bottle.

Anyone else notice these oddities or can explain them?

[Benn Gleck]

Its marketing. Bigger packaging makes it look like you're getting more for your money.

Most things now are like that. We buy our toilet paper in bulk at Sam's, same amount of rolls but the rolls are smaller. A bag of chips or pretty much anything nowdays, same size package but less ounces in them. It's a way of increasing prices, less product for the same money. Most call it INFLATION .......except for our government.

[Matt In Oklahoma]

I used the same principles on my dates! LOL
Once they got me opened up they figured out there was only about 2/3 full and the rest was air :)

[610Alpha]

I used the same principles on my dates! LOL
Once they got me opened up they figured out there was only about 2/3 full and the rest was air :)

Whatever works :)

I don't base my purchases on the size of the package...I look at the qty. Just seems like a waste of material for a cheezy marketing trick.

[Grantmeliberty]

I really doubt that there is anything nefarious about the bottle size, perhaps it is to protect their investment. Vitamins have a pretty high price, and a small bottle could be shoplifted much easier, it would seem. There is no other packaging to inhibit theft.
Everyone is looking at the quantity on the package, and that is all that really matters to me.
On the issue of vitamins, perhaps more importantly, what do you take daily, and perhaps why?
I will go first.
I take a general multi vitamin and mineral from Costco, along with 2000 mg of Vit C with rosehips, again Kirklands brand, 3 2000 iu Vitamin D3, also Kirklands, 400 IU Vitamin E, Kirklands, every third day, 1000 ug of Chromium Picolinate (an important cofactor to insulin to prevent diabetes) (I try to take about 200 ug daily, but what I bought recently was a 1000 ug tablet) a sublingual (dissolve under your tongue) Vitamin B12 with B6 and 800 ug Folic Acid (to get 1200ug of folic acid total with the multi, and to boost B 12 for energy, bought at Trader Joes, a SuperVision lutien and eye herb supplement from Trader Joes, 100 mg Ubiquinol (best form of Coenzyme Q10) from Trader Joes, 100 mg Alpha lipoic acid from Trader Joes, 1 gram of Omega 3 fish oil from Kirklands, 4 mg Astaxanthin from Iherb.com , a valuable antioxident.
In addition to the above, I have an enhanced system of reducing free radical problems, which is sleeping on grounding wires. Sounds crazy, but there is good science behind it, and it doesn't cost anything above putting a copper wire across the lower part of the bed where my bare legs will contact it. The technology was used by the American Tour de France team with great results, and the information about it is freely available at www.earthinginstitute.net The benefits include better circulation in hands and feet for those with compromised circulation, because the red blood cells, when they can maintain their natural negative charge (absent positively charged free radicals) will repel one another rather than clumping and clogging capillaries. This helps to reduce blood pressure as well.
I take no prescription or OTC meds, donate blood every 8 weeks, and am pretty much at my ideal weight, 180 pounds at a little over 6 feet tall. I was 6' 2" in my youth, but have shrunk a bit, at 62 years I am at 6' 1/2".
All this to say, I am doing my best to maintain fitness, and not be compromised when things go south.

[monkeybird]

This method of reducing quantity is rampant. If you don't believe me, check out the size of the card board roll in the center of toilet paper - it's BIGGER. So, you get less paper. Can't trust anyone anymore.

[claymore]

Tuna is now 5 oz vrs 6 oz, bacon in 12 oz vrs 16 oz but all for the same old price. Guess there's not much you can do about it.

[610Alpha]

i buy 1/2 steer from a local farmer...hoping to start raising beef at the inlaws hobby farm that way we can GREATLY reduce our cost.

I'll stop there starting to get off topic.

So it boils down to being a cheezy marketing gimic to make me think I am getting more, I doubt it has anything to do with potential theft. I may have to start looking online for a better deal.

[MustangGal]

Part of it is marketing to be sure, but it also comes down to price per unit. Say I sell 32 different vitamin concoctions and most of them fit pretty well into size x container - I order all or almost all of my containers in size x, because I can get a better price per unit when I buy in large quantities.

[Klayton]

I may have missed it, but along with smaller bottles with mandatory labeling = much much smaller font size, I for one am all for the bigger bottle so I can read the small print without stealing the wife's bifocals to read it. hehehehe
Other than that, I would say marketing, you "feel" better when the bottle is bigger and you fork out that nice clean $10 bill for it...

[brokedownbiker]

Marketing definitely plays a part but keep in mind that most products settle after they shift around during shipment, cereal is a good example. I went on a tour of a factory that makes a specialty breakfast cereal several years ago and they showed how the packaging looks immediately after filling ( the cereal is fed into the bow from a hopper above the production line it is computer controlled and fills to a target weight); the box was full almost to the top. After moving down the line to the machine that closed the flaps and glued them down, the vibration of the equipment had caused the cereal to settle almost 2 inches in the box. It looked like less but the weight was the same. The same probably applies to most prepackaged products, they are filled to either target weights or number of items, they cannot control how the products land in the container then settle.

Add that to the marketing B.S. and it sure makes you think (or know!) that you are getting played. I always look at price per ounce or price per number of items to get the best idea of real cost of things I buy. Got to save wherever you you can, right?

[MustangGal]

I just have to add, if you use a uniform size contianer, you can use uniform size boxes to pack them in. It would certainly be more cost effective to keep three sizes of containers (think sm, med, lg) and three sizes of boxes to use for all your products.

[kihnspiracy]

Go buy a bag of Lay's potato chips. When you open it, see how not full the bag is. Quantities of products in the stores are shrinking everyday.