After church today we went into town for a few things. We stopped in at Costco.
One of the items on our list was gummy multivitamins. (Yes, I know, these are quite a bit more expensive than tablets that get chased down with water. However, if these get people to look forward to taking their vitamins, that's half the battle there.)
We've tried gummy vitamins as well as vitamins that have the crumbly consistency of a sweet tart. Our daughter much prefers the gummy vitamins. I like them all, but if given the choice, I like the gummy ones better, too. (Hence the reason we ran out so quickly; I think we all were eating those.
Since we still had almost a full package of the sweet-tart-type vitamins, I said that I would consume those, since I was the only one who liked those enough to eat them.
But then my wife pointed out that the gummy vitamins were cheaper per vitamin that the sweet-tart vitamins. The gummy vitamins were $8.99 per 250 or $3.60 per 100 count, while the sweet tart vitamins were $13.99 per 300, or $4.67 per 100 count.
Here's the gotcha, though: dose, or more generally, serving size. I knew the dosage of each because I consumed both. The gummy vitamins were two/day, but the sweet tart vitamins were only one/day.
So, just like unit pricing coffee by the pound when the coffee is packaged in Keurig K-Cups doesn't really give a fair comparison, unit pricing by the each when the dosage (or serving size) is different doesn't really give a fair comparison, either. The sweet tart vitamins were quite a bit cheaper per dose: $4.67 per 100 doses for the sweet tart vitamins against $3.60 times 2 = $7.20 per 100 doses for the gummy vitamins.
The bottom line is to make sure you understand what a unit pricing comparison tells you — but also what it doesn't tell you.
These are great lessons in paying close attention to what we pay for items. There needs to be one standard for everything sold so we truly can find out what is the best bang for our buck.
The guidelines do try to make a standard, I think, but some products miss a bit. The disconnect comes when the difference lies within how the product is consumed rather than the product itself.
I constantly compare prices at Costco and Target. I get an immediate 5% rebate at Target and a lot of times, the prices are similar or the same.
We have the Target card too, but don’t go there a whole let. So, not too much value to us.
That’s a good thing to remember …. so, did you buy the gummy vitamins or the sweet-tart ones?
Hah, we bought the gummies. They were for my daughter and she doesn’t like the sweet tart ones.