• GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    35·
    10 months ago

    Valiant effort, but the top minds of the world, whether human or machine, are no match for Charmin’s obfuscation techniques. https://bangyourbuck.com/search/charmin ultra strong/Count/US/table

    Looks okay until you realize that the “count” field refers to different things across different listings. Some count rolls, some count sheets, some count packages.

    Comparing prices of toilet paper and papers towels is 100x harder than it needs to be.

    • ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
      17·
      10 months ago

      Curses!

      Garbage in, garbage out I suppose!

      Charmin really is the king of “1 sheet equals 3, and 1 roll is 2, but our sheets are half the size! So really this roll is 12 rolls!”

    • AtmaJnana@lemmy.world
      7·
      10 months ago

      I once went on a deep dive trying to figure out whether napkins or paper towels were cheaper I probably still have the spreadsheets.

        • AtmaJnana@lemmy.world
          5·
          10 months ago

          For the comparison I was doing (it can be hard to compare the two products,) I found paper towels were almost always cheaper (per unit area.)

          But that was pre-pandemic, so prices are probably way different by now.

    • ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
      3·
      10 months ago

      Yeah some products don’t work because the sellers don’t fill out the information properly.

  • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
    132·
    10 months ago

    If you buy the cheapest rice, the cheapest batteries, or the cheapest hard drive, off Amazon, of all fuckin places, you’re going to have a bad time

  • admiralteal@kbin.social
    111·
    10 months ago

    Getting the best value is frequently an economic mistake for a buyer because it does not take into account the present vs future value of money. Not to mention how it is sure to increase your waste/shrink factor and so can eat up its own savings.

    Don’t deliberately overconsume just to feel like a savvy buyer. Buy a reasonable amount for your own needs and no more. I get that we all like Costco, but the business model really isn’t that good for typical consumers.

    • ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
      5·
      10 months ago

      That’s a fine point!

      I usually only buy dry rice/beans and the like bulk, which I eat the same amount of every week pretty much regardless. But still only ever buy like a month or so worth at a time.

      Getting bulk snacks though from costco… that is a bad move.

    • Hyperreality@kbin.social
      3·
      10 months ago

      I do genuinely enjoy buying enough rice to last a year. Also bought a great cheap rice cooker at my local Chinese grocer. Idiot proof and almost certainly saves electricity.

      I think I once worked out that the rice based meal I’d just eaten had cost less than a euro to make.

    • ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      10 months ago

      Well this should help make it obvious! Cause you can see “cheapest by pound is x, the price per pound of this bulk bag is y.”

      Compared to having to scroll around.

  • TheFriar@lemm.ee
    81·
    10 months ago

    You should know that you can shop other places, leaving Amazon to be shitty without your money in their coffers.

    • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com
      3·
      10 months ago

      Exactly. There is so much stuff online and off and they depend on folks not giving in to convenience. The way amazon treats both their workers and their sellers is horrendous. I make it a point of shopping elsewhere and only in extreme circumstances buy there.

  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
    6·
    10 months ago

    If it doesn’t work to factor in all the “click this box to save X amount” buttons, then it’s a bit useless.

    I’m pretty sure amazon started implementing that shit in order to ruin price tracking sites like camelcamelcamel.

  • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
    5·
    10 months ago

    Search for a USB flash drive to find some really sketchy scam attempts. Looks like you’re getting a gazillion gigabytes for a few dollars, but in reality you’ll get a lesson in what e-waste means. Scroll down to find the realistic products with realistic prices.

  • CraigeryTheKid@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    ooh, this needs to be a Firefox extension!

    edit: I take that back, no, it should stay just the way it is. It works great!

  • Flumpkin@slrpnk.net
    1·
    10 months ago

    Wow thanks that is awesome, gotta remember that site. For rice I already found the 50lbs pack that also beats my local discount grocer (which is rare).

    What pisses me off that amazon has made it’s “sort by cheapest” completely unusable. You find 100 pages of the exact same ultra-trashy product or something related or a replacement part or something.

  • NotAtWork@startrek.website
    0·
    10 months ago

    I want to find the cheapest item by weight with free shipping, really stick it to the man.

    so far 17¢/lb for sand is the best I’ve found.