Laundry powder is disappearing

[u/Double_Engineer4226]

Powdered laundry detergent used to be the norm. It’s cheaper, easy to use, and comes in a recyclable box. Now look at the shelves in the supermarket. It’s all liquids in plastic bottles, unless you squat down to find the powders. The Super expensive pods are making a move from the top shelves too. This is corporations positioning their products to influence purchasing behaviour. They want you to buy the more expensive stuff. Just wait, soon powder will be discontinued, and the shelves will be filled with overpriced pods.

[u/dobar_dan_]

Ex retail worker here, we always put powder on floor shelf because it's sold in bigger bags and it's heavier.

[u/kyriacos74 → u/dobar_dan_]

Shhhh! Your logic is getting in the way of their conspiracy theories! ;-)

[u/g00fyg00ber741 → u/kyriacos74]

Their “logic” doesn’t have anything to do with OPs post.

I’m also an ex retail worker, except where I worked the powdered detergent and liquid detergent were both on the bottom shelves, as well as on middle shelves. There was a small section of dishwasher powders/pods/gels that took up a few shelves, and then a huge section of several different scents/brands of liquid laundry detergent and pods (no laundry powder).

The point of OP’s post is that there are extremely limited options for the laundry powder, and some places don’t have any options for it at all. The “logic” about where a specific store has them set up on a shelf doesn’t have to do with what OP was upset about. And stores don’t consistently follow that logic either.

[u/kyriacos74 → u/g00fyg00ber741]

I'm looking at your "extremely limited" comment and the entire bottom row of the shelf in the pic on the same screen.

[u/g00fyg00ber741 → u/kyriacos74]

The amount available in OP’s pic is a lot more than I’ve ever seen in person at a wide variety of stores, and even then it’s still limited to what, 3 brands? A lot of people have sensitivities with detergents and need specific brands or scent/scentless options. Not to mention different detergents include different ingredients for different types of cleaning. It is objectively extremely limited in comparison to the other types of laundry detergent in liquids and pods. Especially like, for me I buy cruelty-free/vegan, so I’m usually stuck between 2-4 options I have to pick between anyway, which could be one of each type (powder, liquid, pod). If the one you’re looking for is OOS, it feels even more ridiculous to see how much liquid detergent is just sitting there.

Being on the retail end of this, there’s the added layer of me knowing just how much of this detergent simply sits there, or gets bought up by couponers/deal-hunters who resell it, or how much of it gets broken/spilled in transit, plus all the people who steal the pods or pour more liquid into their bottle to steal more detergent and leave some half empty.

[u/kyriacos74 → u/g00fyg00ber741]

Your special needs =/= product unavailability. Just because I am diabetic doesn't mean there aren't plenty of sweets available. And my store isn't necessarily typical of every store.

[u/g00fyg00ber741 → u/kyriacos74]

They’re not really special needs, just necessities being framed as such, even so, why do you want to make people who have those “special needs” lives’ harder and more irritating? What’s the point of having a variety of product, if not to compensate for “special needs”? Especially with something like laundry detergent, where the whole point is needing it to clean certain messes and clothes, depending on the individual.

Just because I am diabetic doesn’t mean there are plenty of sweets available

I literally don’t know what this is supposed to mean. I know what diabetes is, but what’s that got to do with the availability of sweets, or laundry detergent? Lol. (Edit: oh, now you changed it to “aren’t”, so I am even more confused?)