I always look at unit prices: how much do I get for my dollar? But that assumes I can use all of it. The manufacturer puts “12oz” whether I’ll be able to get the full 12oz or only 6oz. L’Oreal was selling lotions where:
these Liquid Cosmetic Product containers only dispense between as little as 43 percent to 81 percent of the container’s advertised contents. — Critcher et al. v. L’Oreal
Even though these containers would often dispense less than half of the advertised volume, L’Oreal won the case: the law says the amount listed on the container means the amount in the container, not the amount you’ll be able to get out of the container. But it doesn’t have to be that way. What should our laws say?
We should update our labeling laws to require manufacturers to use the amount a consumer could reasonably extract. If you have a wide mouth transparent container with smooth insides, a rubber scraper can get it all. If you have a narrow mouth squeeze bottle, then only count what squeezes out. Maybe manufacturers would shift to more efficient packaging, or maybe consumers would accept higher unit cost for more convenience. The important thing is aligning incentives: pay for what you can use.
There is actually one area where we do this already: medicine. Because it seriously matters that when the doctor prescribes 10ml you receive 10ml, they are required to measure losses and adjust for them. If we could only do this in one part of the economy I agree medication is good choice, but why don’t we do this everywhere?
I know that calling some things “fraud” is exaggerated, but there should be some short word for: “your business strategy depends on your customers making some cognitive mistakes you are nudging them towards”.
And yeah, it’s not a yes-or-no questions, but it would be interesting to estimate how many % of income you would lose if your customers could compensate against those cognitive mistakes. (For example, if they had augmented reality glasses that would immediately calculate the actual useable volume, and then calculate the price per unit, etc.) There is something bad if the % is too high, in my opinion, even if it’s perfectly legal.
This might be a good idea if it was feasible to measure in an objective way, but that is absolutely not the case. And I’m not really sure it would be a good idea even then.
It seems perfectly simple to measure, and they just need to contain at least that much, so companies would overshoot by a bit to make sure.
If a company claims it contains a litre, and a customer sues, all the company has to do is bring one to court. And have a representative get a litre out in a way that seems reasonable to the judge.
“In a way that seems reasonable to the judge” is hiding an enormous amount of complexity that cannot possibly be adjudicated fairly or with a reasonable expectation that your methods at the factory to test it will be approved in court.
That could be argued about every single thing in law, yet law continues to work.
If you were trying to turn this into law, I think the normal way would be to encode the principle into statute, and then delegate the rulemaking. For the law, you’d define it like:
Then you’d direct the FTC to make regulations defining standardized testing procedures. Things like, it should sit for 24hr, in the retail orientation, at room temperature / fridge temperature as the packaging specifies for storage after opening; pumps are to be operated with force X until the marginal depression puts out less than Y% of a serving; etc. We do this kind of rulemaking for many products, so I think it could be done here without too much cost.
Walmart does not even use uniform units in the denominators across products of the same kind—it is a mixture of oz, lbs, fl oz, sometimes l, sometimes count. So it would be a great start to just require uniform units to make it all easily comparable at a glance.
There have been companies, like LiquiGlide, and I think someone using micropatterning of plastic to control friction but I can’t remember who, that have developed ways to get almost all of even quite thick or sticky products out of there containers. Small, not cheap but not super expensive packaging change, big impact. They never got much traction, for various reasons. I would love to see conditions change to actually favor companies that minimize waste.
I think LiquiGlide at one point was focusing on large industrial containers, where the proportional impact is smaller, IIRC due in part to the difficulty of overcoming consumer psychology. Companies don’t want to cut their sales 20 or 60%, but consumers don’t want to pay 20 or 60% more for the “same amount” of product.
(Suppressing urge to pun)
Seems like updating labeling requirements would work very well here then?
I would think so.
Personal anecdote: There’s a Cerave moisturizer creme I buy that sometimes comes in a pack of two equal weight jars, one with a screw top amd one with a pump top. The pump only lets you get about half out. I use the other one and then switch the tops.
Your quote is actually about a specific set of products. The pdf mentions:
L’Oreal Visible Lift Serum Absolute—liquid foundation, 1 fl oz, ~$13
Maybelline Superstay Better Skin Skin-Transforming Foundation—liquid foundation, 1 fl oz, ~$13
L’Oreal Age Perfect Eye Renewal Eye Cream—eye cream, 0.5 fl oz, ~$15-20
L’Oreal Revitalift Bright Reveal Brightening Day Moisturizer—day
moisturizer, 1 fl oz
They all are very small volume & have somewhat unusual packaging. E.g. this seems to be #3 - https://www.amazon.com/LOreal-Paris-Anti-Aging-Antioxidants-Dermatologist/dp/B098QZL96Z
I don’t think 12 oz lotion packing is so inefficient.