In my efforts to never buy from Amazon, I restocked our toilet paper from Target this week. I tend to buy the big multi-roll packs and have them shipped since we don't own a car. The mister noted that these new rolls were smaller - we compared the old and new directly, and yup, definitely smaller.
Now, you and me both were ready to scream "Shrinkflation!", but not so fast, fellow homesteader.
These days, toilet paper (and other paper roll goods) are plastered with meaningless, non-comparable numbers. 8 Super Ultra Rolls = 4 Monster Rolls, and 16 Family Rolls = 8 Zookeeper Rolls, etc etc etc. It's worse than the sizes at Starbucks.
So the only way to really compare is square footage, which they make hard to find in online listings. But I persevered, and here is the comparison for our favorite brand, Cottonelle.
At Amazon: 24 Family Mega Rolls cost $27.59 (free delivery with Prime). They come as 4 (labeled for individual sale) packages of 6 rolls, and each package has 223.2 sq.ft., so the total is 892.8 sq.ft., or 3.09 cents per square foot.
At Target: 36 Roll Value Pack (Mega Rolls) costs $29.49 (easy to add other household items to the order to total $35 for free shipping). This comes as 4 (not labeled for individual sale) packages of 9 rolls, and the total sq.ft. listed on the wrapping is 1076.4 sq.ft., or 2.73 cents per square foot.
So even though the rolls are smaller, the cost is lower. Not shrinkflation!
Of some further interest, the advertised numbers for what a "regular" roll is are not consistent. The Target pack says it's equal to 144 regular rolls, and the Amazon pack says it's equal to 132 regular rolls. Doing the math using sq.ft., the Amazon pack assumes the "regular" roll is 6.76 sq.ft., and the Target pack assumes the "regular" roll is 7.475 sq.ft. So you can't even compare that.
I guess we'll end up replacing the rolls themselves ever so slightly more often this way, but the paper itself costs about 11% less, so I'm good with that tradeoff.
To sum up:
- • modern retailers are lying fiends who are deliberately trying to trick you
- • toilet paper math is annoying math
- • don't shop at Amazon