How do we deal with the inflation monster?

Mahmut Abi, what are you doing?

Whatever, nephew, I'm working on the labels. Since pensions have been raised, I thought I'd adjust the prices a bit.

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Is this the cause of inflation?

Is Mahmut Abi to blame?

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They have come up with new terms. 

Dear Mahfi Eğilmez wrote about these terms in one of his articles.

In fact, they are familiar, but let's just say that he named them, dear Mahfi Eğilmez.

For example, they call it Shirinkflation, instead of one liter of oil, you make it nine hundred milliliters, you don't change the container, you just write 900 milliliters instead of one liter on the brand paper on the bottle, you can play with the price or not, you better not play with the price on the first day you put it on the market. 

And you write the volume on the paper in small fonts, but don't make it too conspicuous!

Now that's shirinkflation! We know it as weight reduction!

But it's fraud, it's deceiving the public!

No way, it's a marketing tactic, the public should be careful, right? 

It says on the bottle that the fat content is now nine hundred milligrams. If we are reducing the weight, we are not stealing, it is what it says on the bottle. Let the public read what they are buying!

The only thing we do with shirinkflation is to keep the hike out of sight and out of mind as if we are selling at the old price by reducing the grammage. 

In fact, we don't put the price in people's eyes because we have raised the price, and people don't get psychologically traumatized. 

In fact, by doing so, we are actually beneficial to public health.

It is the same as writing the price of half a kilo instead of the price per kilo in the market!

In the markets, the price of ready-made packages used to be written, now the price of 100 grams is written underneath. You think it is cheap, but when you multiply it by the weight, it costs a lot of money. This is the same thing! Marketing tactics. It's like writing the price 5 cents lower by fractions.

Human psychology!

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What other term have they invented?

They call it grid inflation. 

You increase prices, but you set prices according to your mind. 

You put prices on goods above the inflation rate. 

People have accepted the price increases because we are in an inflationary environment, so you raise prices as much as you can, but even if you raise prices at the rate of inflation, people get demoralized. It doesn't make any difference if you charge a little more!

What's the harm in making a little more profit while you have the opportunity?

And you have an excuse. Don't you have to spend more capital to replace the goods in an inflationary environment?

Do you know what the price of that good will be tomorrow? 

Put the additional price increase on top of the price now, and tomorrow you will be comfortable paying the wholesaler for the goods.

Grid inflation is actually immoral, but that's what foreigners call it. 

This is actually the height of immorality.

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What else can you do in this inflationary environment?

The point is to sell. You have to make it look like prices haven't gone up!

For example, you can sell bagels without sesame seeds, or pastries without cheese. Even baklava without peanuts. How about empty pita bread?

Besides, why don't you lower the quality of the flour?

You can even just put margarine in the pastry. Margarine is bad for your health!

Come on, who cares about health. Isn't the point to make money?

So if you want to make sales, cut down on quality.

They call it skimpflation. It means "less", as in less quality.

It's the practice of selling a lower quality product at the same price.

That's fraud, of course, but what can we do? Is inflation your fault?

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Let me tell you a new method.

Since two of the above methods mean keeping prices unchanged, we can say that they aim to fight inflation in a sense. 

Of course, the ones I mentioned above are fraudulent. But if the aim is to fight inflation, there is another way to do it without being dishonest.

Let me tell you about a sales method that has been practiced in Russia for a while.

Here, some goods have prices written on them at the factory. 

The government says that the producer and the seller should negotiate the price between them, but the end-user should be able to read the price on the goods as it is written on the goods and not pay more than that price to the seller. 

At least the price for that batch of goods is set by the factory, so it is not possible for the consumer to be cheated by markets or other intermediary organizations. 

Look at the price on the label and pay that much. The price doesn't change no matter where you buy it!

When I buy something, I sometimes ask if they have it from the previous batch, they look at the counter and if they have it, they give it to me. The price written on the previous batch can sometimes be lower.

Of course, this is not valid for all goods, but at least for some goods, I think this method is useful in terms of fighting inflation.

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Actually, I think Russians are doing such a practice out of habit from the time of communism. 

Back then, the price of everything was fixed. The state set the prices.

My wife still tells me sometimes that this and that was at that price back then. 

She remembers the price of almost everything back then. Because everything was sold at the same fixed price for years, the prices were engraved in people's minds.

Of course, the practice at that time was not a free market. It had its own drawbacks, which is why the Soviet Union collapsed.

However, since the people are used to it, they are used to the fixed prices of some products today, even if it is on a batch basis.

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Look, if it doesn't work, should we do it like this for a while?

You will oblige the producers to write the final sales price on the container of the product, and the sellers will not be able to sell that product to the end user for more than the price written on the container.

In this way, perhaps shameless price increases in the market can be prevented.

This method can be applied for many products. Especially for products that have a certain period of time, the production date and expiration date are already written on them, and the selling price can be added next to it.

Write down how much it can be sold for with the same method, and that's the end of it. 

Let the grocery stores and the transporters in between agree with the factory on who will buy what for how much and how much they will deliver it for!

At least we will be saved from this ridiculous inflation of impudence. What is it called? 

Grid inflation!

At least we will get rid of that. Prices will be raised in a more controlled way.

Whatever the name of this method of inflation is, we can call it pre-price setting inflation! 

Preprice inflation!

I think that if this can be applied to some products, it might help in the fight against inflation.

After all, this is not a method that is very contrary to the free market economy, the freedom of the event is that the producer determines the final sales prices of the products. 

I mean, let's be at the mercy of capital, at least they won't raise prices every time according to their minds like our Mahmut Abi.

Think about what I am saying.

***

There is also another method practiced here. Maybe we have this in Turkey as well.

There are QR codes on some products here. Each product coming out of the manufacturer has a separate QR code, and the sellers have to sell such products by scanning the QR code instead of the barcode. There is a special QR code for each product, especially on things that may be abundant in leakage, such as alcohol and cigarettes, or products that are likely to spoil in a short time, such as milk and dairy products.

Skimpflation, they call it? You know, the story of stealing from quality. 

This method has been developed as a solution to this.

Does it work?

Well, again you are at the mercy of the producer. If the producer produces poor quality goods, is there anything you can do when buying that product?

Only if it is a big producer, there is probably stricter state supervision.

There is probably nothing to do about the so-called shirinkflation. That issue is direct producer fraud, after all.

Only here in the markets, the price of each product in liters or kilos has to be written on the shelf where the product is placed, I can say that this is useful for comparing prices.

Still, you will read what is written on the product yourself. If you trust the grocery stores and throw everything in the basket without looking, you may end up banging your head against the wall when you get home.

In today's world of wild capitalism, I will say that you cannot trust anyone, but I don't enjoy living in such a world! 

I want to trust the people around me. I want my children to live in a much more loving world.

Can anyone tell me how this will end?

But let's not despair, maybe one day we will find a way to fix everything.

Love and respect to everyone from Moscow