Just opened vitamines, it’s only filled about a fifth. No reason to do so, but it does take up a lot more space. That means: more boxes for storage, more trucks for transport and of course more plastic used. Just… why?
Bigger packaging takes up more space on the shelf, and you can print more branding on it.
Was it an Amazon owned company?
Weird kinder surprise
The basic answer is that the production lines are already set up for that size. Some number cruncher figured out they would save $0.01+ by not taking the time to switch the production lines from one to another and, instead, just switching the labels.
and, instead, just switching the labels
The labels may also be part of it. Vitamins need a lot of mandatory nutritional information printed on them, and they may simply have been unable to print all of that (in a reasonable font size) on a smaller bottle.
But, of course, the real unspoken reason is that it’s deceptive marketing. People who don’t read the label carefully will see a bigger bottle and think that it means they’re getting more product inside, even if a competing brand’s smaller bottle actually contains more.
Except they are paying to ship 50% air. Those calculations were probably made before gas prices went up.
Maybe, but even with more expensive plastic and shipping, it’s still small and lightweight.
That actually makes a lot of sense. I always wondered why all my prescription bottles were so much larger than they needed to be.
I bought the bottle of 360 pills at Walmart a couple years ago. Finally ran out and got more. Same brand. Same price.
Suddenly there’s only 200 pills in the bottle AND it’s in a larger bottle now? wtf?
They must use the same bottle for a 400-pill bottle and a 200-pill bottle.
Are the pills the same size?
Identical.
That’s even weirder - I know it’s all marketing, but how do they not take into account that there are people that can compare them?
The average person wouldn’t demonstrably care. Same thing with shrinkflation. Also, depending on where you live, the average IQ and general knowledge thresholds people meet are lower than you think. We’re all living with the consequences of Gen X and older millennials that were brought up with lead gasoline and poor schooling.
They could have made the pills larger, to fill up the bottle. Then you wouldn’t even guess there was something to complain about.
Bottles are made in standard sizes by the millions, they used whatever worked for this product, base on what others here have said.
Pills are mostly filler anyway, just to make them big enough to handle, and also to improve dosing per pill. The active ingredient is usually a very small part of the volume.
I guarantee, if it were cheaper, all things considered, to use a smaller bottle, they would have.
I see your point and would agree, but they have different containers. The bigger pills are mostly filler, so it would be cheaper if they made those smaller.
The most obvious answer is shrinkflation. They may have sold units with more pills in them before but economic pressures put them in a pickle: increase price for all or keep price the same and reduce content. It’s possible they had ordered a gazillion of these pill bottles and have them in storage now. They gotta use them. It would be economically and environmentally mad if they put a million of these bottles in a landfill and ordered smaller replacements.
The brand only started about 6 months ago so probably not.
