Re: Target unit pricing - Here's the real point

"Stan Brown" <the_stan_brown@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:MPG.22d001326708406f98b6d4@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:39:48 GMT from Lou <lpogoda@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>:
> > There was an assortment of sizes that were aerosol cans, and the
> > unit price was given per ounce. ... The unit price for the pump
> > sprayer was given in pounds. Again, easy enough to figure out what
> > was the most economical pump sprayer. But impossible to tell if the
> > pressurized can or the pump spray was the most better buy.
>
> Well, if you know the best pump sprayer's unit price and the best
> aerosol's unit price, multiply the latter by 16 and compare to the
> former to find which is "most better". While I agree with you that it
> would be better if both were in ounces, it's hardly "impossible" to
> compare them, just less convenient.

As I said, this was years ago.  Before there were any such things as cell
phones, let alone cell phones with calcualtors.  There were hand-held
calculators, but they weren't the inexpensive giveaways they are today,
they
cost a noticeable amount of money and I didn't have one.  In principle
you're correct - it's possible to do the arithmetic by hand and come up
with
the answer.  What I meant, and what I thought was evident from the
context,
was that it was impossible to tell from the unit price tags which was the
better buy.

By the way, I don't see the logic of multiplying by 16.  The stuff priced
priced per ounce was in fluid ounces, a measure of volume, not
one-sixteenth
of a pound, a measure of weight.  If this stuff was plain water, you'd
multiply by 0.0652 to convert ounces to pounds.  While I'm reasonably
decent
at doing arithmetic in my head, that one's beyond my ability, not to
mention
that I don't happen to know conversion factors like this, I have to look
them up.  And of course, the conversion factor for any particular brand of
furniture polish is going to be different from the factor for water.

> > > Up to that point, I had thought that the point of unit pricing was
> > to make that comparison possible - after all, what I was buying was
> > furniture polish, and it was the same product in each container.
>
> They may or may not have been the same product. Something formulated
> to be dispensed through a pump may have different viscosity from
> something formulated for an aerosol spray.

Functionally, they were the same product - you sprayed it on your wood
furniture and wiped it with a soft cloth.  I don't know the chemical
composition of any furniture polish, but presumably they're not all
identical - there's some difference in composition between Pledge and
Endust, and they're not the same product.  But that's not an excuse to
unit
price them in different units, and in fact all the aerosol cans of
furniture
polish were unit priced in ounces.