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- The pace of shrinkflation: tricks of price tag stores deprive Russians of 1 trillion rubles
The pace of shrinkflation: tricks of price tag stores deprive Russians of 1 trillion rubles
The tricks of shops with "nine eggs" and an incomplete liter of milk annually deprive Russians of about 1 trillion rubles, according to the Union of Consumers of the Russian Federation. According to the organization, people are losing money due to the fact that manufacturers and retail chains do not indicate the full price of goods. In an appeal sent to the government, social activists propose to oblige stores to indicate the cost of products in terms of a standardized unit of measurement — for example, per kilogram, liter or dozen. Earlier, State Duma deputies applied to the Ministry of Industry and Trade with a similar initiative. What other sales practices are used by retailers and whether the new measure will be able to protect customers can be found in the Izvestia article.
How customers lose a trillion rubles annually
The Consumer Union of the Russian Federation (SPRF) has recorded an increase in the number of consumer complaints about unfair pricing methods and the design of price tags for food. This is stated in a letter from the organization to the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin (Izvestia has the document).
Buyers complain about shrinkflation — a decrease in the quantity, volume or weight of goods in a package, indicating the price not for the whole package, but for 100 g or another weight other than the mass of the product, as well as highlighting a "special" price in the price tag when the full price without discounts and other promotions becomes less noticeable, the report says. the address of the SPRF.
As Izvestia wrote, even after the crisis of 2008-2009, manufacturers began to actively reduce the volume of packaging, while keeping the price of goods the same. Shrinkflation allows businesses to reduce the costs of companies with limited opportunities to increase the cost of products, but often such actions by manufacturers cause a negative reaction from customers. For example, the chicken eggs that appeared on the shelves of Russian stores in 2019 in new packages of nine instead of 10 caused a strong reaction on social networks, some citizens accused the producers of deception. Also in 2023, it was reported that on store shelves it is increasingly possible to find containers of 0.8 and 0.9 liters instead of 1 liter.
— Shrinkflation is a deception or deception of the consumer, because while maintaining the same technology, but increasing the cost, the manufacturer would have to increase the selling price, which reduces its competitive opportunities. However, instead, it creates the appearance of maintaining the same price or even slightly reducing it, reducing the cost by reducing the quantity of goods in the package, but without explicitly informing the end user about these changes. In fact, he pays the same money, but for a smaller quantity of goods," Alexey Koitov, chairman of the Consumer Union of Russia, told Izvestia.
According to him, there would be no such misleading of buyers if manufacturers directly informed consumers about changes in the volume or weight of goods — for example, indicating that the packaging "is now not 1 liter, but 0.9 liters."
The dynamics of the average weight of food packaging for the second quarter of 2025 showed a decrease of 3% compared to the same period in 2024, the media reported. At the same time, back in 2023, the Prosecutor General's Office achieved amendments to GOST for food products and the establishment of uniform requirements for their packaging. Manufacturers of butter and sunflower oils, noodles, sugar, salt, flour, rice, millet, black tea and other essential foodstuffs wishing to declare their compliance with GOST should use fixed quantities of the named product. However, compliance with GOST is not a prerequisite, it is more profitable for some companies to simply continue to reduce packaging without indicating that the product meets the state quality standard, an industry source told Izvestia.
— Many consumers of consumers become victims of unfair practices without receiving complete and reliable information about the price. Taking into account the reduction of the average weight of food packaging by about 3%, the amount of damage caused to consumers due to misconceptions about the real value of the product can amount to up to 1 trillion rubles annually," concluded Alexey Koitov.
Dmitry Tortev, a member of the expert council of the State Duma Committee for the Protection of Competition, agrees with this assessment. The annual turnover of the food retail market in 2024 amounted to 40 trillion rubles, according to Rosstat data. Even if 1% of this amount is an overpayment due to manipulations by unscrupulous sellers with weights, stocks and price tags, the damage to citizens can amount to at least 400 billion annually, the expert noted.
— It is obvious that the tricks of stores with "nine eggs", an incomplete liter of milk and questionable promotions mask the price of goods by a much higher percentage, so Russians most likely lose more than 1 trillion rubles annually. These are funds that are withdrawn from the pockets of Russian families and do not work for the development of the real economy," the expert said.
In this regard, social activists propose to oblige stores to indicate the cost of products in terms of a standardized unit of measurement — for example, per kilogram, liter or dozen. The SPRF also asks to establish clear requirements for the uniformity of prices and values indicated on price tags — the same font, size and color.
As Izvestia wrote, earlier, State Duma deputies addressed the Ministry of Industry and Trade and Rospotrebnadzor with a proposal to introduce a unified weight unit for measuring goods. In 2023, a bill on setting a single price in kilograms or liters was already submitted to the lower house of parliament, but it was not adopted due to the additional costs of trade to replace price tags: the Ministry of Industry and Trade criticized the document, noting that the display of goods and the preparation of price tags would become more expensive, new costs would arise for the modernization of accounting systems, which the cost of production.
Izvestia sent a request to the Cabinet of Ministers, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, as well as to retail chains and food manufacturers.
How the measure can affect the business
Chairman of the Presidium of the Association of Retail Trade Companies (ACORT) Stanislav Bogdanov noted that the current legislation sufficiently regulates the procedure for informing customers about the characteristics of the product, including its actual weight and volume, and retail chains fully provide consumers with the opportunity to make a correct purchase.
— In the current conditions, price remains a sensitive parameter for most consumers. In this regard, a slight reduction in weight on the part of manufacturers, which is necessarily reflected on the label and price tag, is an additional measure to optimize costs and maintain an affordable price, as well as to support demand," said Stanislav Bogdanov.
The measure proposed by the Consumers' Union of the Russian Federation will lead to an excessive overload of price tags with information and complicate the perception of the weight and cost of the product by consumers, he believes. In addition, given the wide range of products, such requirements will create an additional administrative burden on retail chains and manufacturers, which may affect the final cost of the product, the expert added.
— The proposal to introduce mandatory price indication for a standardized unit of measurement is absolutely correct and long overdue. Unfair practices in the design of price tags and manipulation of the weight of packages cause significant financial damage to Russians — nationwide, we can talk about hundreds of billions of rubles annually. These funds are, in fact, a hidden overpayment that settles in the producer—retailer chain," says Mikhail Lachugin, an independent consultant to retail chain suppliers.
According to him, the arguments of large retailers about the "overload" of price tags do not stand up to criticism, since the same networks freely place "profitable" or "special offer" advertising stickers on them. This is not about technical complexity, but about the unwillingness to lose a tool that allows you to influence consumer choice against him, he added.
Existing industry associations often act as classical lobbyists, defending exclusively narrow-industry interests and blocking such initiatives: at the same time, in the current economic conditions, a dialogue based on the principles of social responsibility and fair competition is needed, which in the long run will strengthen citizens' trust in retail chains, Mikhail Lachugin added.
The unified approach to price indication has both advantages and disadvantages that should be taken into account, says Anna Tsvetkova, Associate professor of the Department of Integrated Communications at the RANEPA under the President of the Russian Federation. So, according to the expert, the consumer is unlikely to massively recalculate the weight per kilogram and the actual cost of the product in the package — for example, there is a product where the package weight is extremely small and the product does not need much to use (like vanillin for baking).
A unified approach to displaying prices in certain situations can be beneficial for citizens — some buyers will potentially be able to visually compare the cost of different varieties of similar products faster and avoid unnecessary expenses, says Georgy Ostapkovich, research director at the HSE Center for Market Research. However, the expert added that Russians are quite well-versed in prices and with their different designs, having long been accustomed to recalculating and comparing the uniform cost of goods.
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