Diaper pricing pitfalls
Diapers are confusing. They come in almost uncountable varieties, brands, styles and more. Most brands have at least two or three different types of disposable diapers – for example, Pampers has Cruisers, Baby Dry, Swaddlers and Sensitive. After you weed through the type, you buy a package of diapers, including; convenience packs, economy packs, jumbo packs, bulk packs, jumbo box, value box, economy box… What is worse is that many places who sell diapers will actually sell up to 10 to 15 different package styles of the same style of diaper. An example of this is Diapers.com sells 11 different packages (not sizes, packages) of Pampers, Size 3 diapers, of which there are 6 different options of purchasing Pampers Cruisers. Now the purpose of an online store is to give the customer variety, but grocery stores are not much better. A recent trip to Target gave the author the option of purchasing 16 different types of Pampers, of which there were six different package quantities of Pampers Cruisers.
So, how do you make sense out of all this? Well, generally, it is true that the largest package is the best deal. Back to Diapers.com and their Cruisers, the largest package ranges in price per diaper of $0.2687 for size three to $0.4299 for size 6. However, buying just a slightly smaller quantity only increases your price per diaper by $0.0170 (size 3) to $0.0048 (size 6). In essence, there is almost no difference in prices, except that, based on average diapers used in a specific stage, the price savings from size 3 to size 6 will save you $145 over the time your child is in diapers.
Why would you buy a pack for $3 less when you can get more? The answer is simple, and that is in the risk of having unused diapers. For example, assuming again specific averages of time spent in a specific size, buying the package that has more diapers will create 308 unused diapers, while the smaller package will only leave you with 112 unused diapers. Meaning, if you buy the bigger package, you will spend $100.37 on diapers that would not go to use, versus only $39.30. However, this means that you are buying two extra packages of the largest size, and one full extra package of the smaller size.
February 17 2011 | Pram Travel Systems: The Best Are Unlike The Rest | Comments Off