The government’s bold announcement today that it was going to fix shrinkflation – with a polite request to the competition watchdog to ask supermarkets to increase the font size a tad on the per-unit bit of shelf tags – does sound like mad political satire.
But hold off, Utopia writers, because I’m here to defend it as actually a decent idea, mainly because I keep forgetting my glasses.
This will take some explaining – so strap in, you’re in for a wild ride.
The main symptom of ageing, I find, is an increasing inability to stop myself from singing along to the music they play in supermarkets.
It’s a problem, and not least because I know they’re doing it to make me spend even more. As I give in to the urge to mumble Crowded House songs in the Brunswick Woolies, I am falling victim to yet another in the growing list of tricks that the duopoly use to extort money from us at the height of the cost-of-living crisis and support their need to maintain a globally unusual level of profitability.
Last year the University of Bath’s School of Management calculated that in-store music increases shopping bills by more than 10%, if we shop midweek, because the “pleasant” music tricks our work-depleted brains to make us happier and more impulsive shoppers.
The solution, of course, is to shop on the weekend.
Which I do, mostly. But then I hit another age-related issue. I forget to take my glasses.
When an optician looked me in the eye a few years ago and told me I had “old sight” and would need to wear glasses for the first time, it was a death blow to my self-esteem but a relief to my arms, which stopped having to hold my Kindle at full stretch in order to make out what was going on in a book.
However, not being a lifetime glasses wearer, I always forget to bring the things with me, which makes me excellent company at restaurants because I can’t see the menu.
It also makes me a prime target for all the tricks that supermarkets deploy to make us pay more for things without us A) realising it, B) feeling bad about it, or worst of all C) trying not to do it.
Now, until I lost my ability to see what was written on supermarket shelves, I was a huge fan of the Unit Pricing Code.
As I’m sure you’re aware, on 1 July 2009 supermarkets were ordered to provide shoppers with “accurate and timely price comparisons between different brands and sizes based on weight, volume or unit”, AKA the teeny writing in the corner of the tag on the shelf that tells you what you’re really paying.
No more tiresome mental arithmetic trying to divide $13.60 by 24 loo rolls and $8.80 by 16 loo rolls of a different brand in order to work out which was the better offer (don’t raise the ply count with me as a confounding factor, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you – another advantage of old age). Not to mention having to compare across all the different brands of the same item, some placed handily at eye level (I wonder why) others tucked out of reach on the top shelf and mysteriously much cheaper, and having to do all this while keeping the kids from running off to dance on the in-store CCTV cameras because they saw it on an episode of Bluey.
The unit pricing thing works. A post-implementation review found it costs the supermarkets hardly anything to implement, and saves shoppers both time and money.
It’s all there for you. And you get to celebrate the wins, like finding out that the smaller pack of Sultana Bran that’s “on special” is not only going to keep me regular, but is also a genuine discount on the bigger but not-on-sale pack.
Unless you forget your glasses, of course. Which, as I’ve pointed out, I often do.
So yes, please, to a biggified font on the Unit Pricing Code. It might actually save people some money, as they totter aimlessly down the aisles with kids in tow, humming along to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.
Footnote: About a minute after this piece went live, my mother read it and texted me saying “I have the same problem”. So that’s at least two people this policy will help.
Nick Miller is Guardian Australia’s morning live news editor
