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High Prices on plastic boxes: supply or ripoff?


MickinMD

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Having to repopulate my home and yard with stuff has made me very sensitive to the fact you need to do a lot of comparison shopping because some manufacturers are jacking prices WAY up while others are not for the same stuff.

It seems like the middlemen are jacking up prices for certain materials far above their costs, similar to gasoline going over $4/gallon in 2008 despite storage tanks being topped-off.

Back in 2016, I found 4 excellent plastic boxes (two 25.6 qt. and two 44 qt.) to hold tools, groceries, etc. in the back of my Honda Fit with the back seats in place with room for long tools like snow brushes/scrapers behind them.  They got brittle with age, only 1 of 4 boxes remains, and with my Fit no longer being used to temporarily shuttling lawn mowers, etc. to my house, I decided to get new ones.  I took a picture of the last one's info and figured I'd order a new set from Amazon:

204493162_Lastofmyoldcontainers20210729_900p.jpg.cb2633327d347195f1a6ab3579ec27b1.jpg

Here's (left or 1st) the current, identical to what I paid $51.94 bucks in 2016, Ziploc Weathershield set, 2 26.5 qt. and 2 44 qt boxes and they cost $166.95 compared with a  virtually identical set, including same LxWXH, by "Iris USA" that's $53.99 now, both on Amazon.  In fact, when I looked up my 2016 order, the Ziploc stuff was sold by Iris USA!

Ziploc, Iris USA - the only difference appears to be the word "Ziploc" on the handles. Otherwise they're almost surely made in the same Chinese factory. Ziploc or it's middleman has more than tripled the price for what appears to be something their Chinese suppliers are making for almost the same price as five years ago:

image.png.bcdef3b08a84e76526c9194ccdc94b7d.png image.png.ec277fbd165fdaccfd00722244799ecc.png

Then, I needed some 2 quart containers for storing foods in the fridge.  This time the Ziploc 72 oz ones were two-for-$1.98 and the Rubbermaid 64 oz (2 qt.) ones were two-for-$7.56, both at Walmart.

 

 

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4 hours ago, MickinMD said:

Having to repopulate my home and yard with stuff has made me very sensitive to the fact you need to do a lot of comparison shopping because some manufacturers are jacking prices WAY up while others are not for the same stuff.

It seems like the middlemen are jacking up prices for certain materials far above their costs, similar to gasoline going over $4/gallon in 2008 despite storage tanks being topped-off.

Back in 2016, I found 4 excellent plastic boxes (two 25.6 qt. and two 44 qt.) to hold tools, groceries, etc. in the back of my Honda Fit with the back seats in place with room for long tools like snow brushes/scrapers behind them.  They got brittle with age, only 1 of 4 boxes remains, and with my Fit no longer being used to temporarily shuttling lawn mowers, etc. to my house, I decided to get new ones.  I took a picture of the last one's info and figured I'd order a new set from Amazon:

204493162_Lastofmyoldcontainers20210729_900p.jpg.cb2633327d347195f1a6ab3579ec27b1.jpg

Here's (left or 1st) the current, identical to what I paid $51.94 bucks in 2016, Ziploc Weathershield set, 2 26.5 qt. and 2 44 qt boxes and they cost $166.95 compared with a  virtually identical set, including same LxWXH, by "Iris USA" that's $53.99 now, both on Amazon.  In fact, when I looked up my 2016 order, the Ziploc stuff was sold by Iris USA!

Ziploc, Iris USA - the only difference appears to be the word "Ziploc" on the handles. Otherwise they're almost surely made in the same Chinese factory. Ziploc or it's middleman has more than tripled the price for what appears to be something their Chinese suppliers are making for almost the same price as five years ago:

image.png.bcdef3b08a84e76526c9194ccdc94b7d.png image.png.ec277fbd165fdaccfd00722244799ecc.png

Then, I needed some 2 quart containers for storing foods in the fridge.  This time the Ziploc 72 oz ones were two-for-$1.98 and the Rubbermaid 64 oz (2 qt.) ones were two-for-$7.56, both at Walmart.

 

 

Oh man I had maybe 5-10 empty stackable plastic bins.  I tossed a bunch as goodwill wouldn’t take them and still have a couple.  

We put a lot of our stuff in them when we remodeled but don’t need them now.

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