One thing I noticed in creating POs and placing orders for science kit components is that we’re experiencing serious inflation. Dollar-wise, most of my orders are to wholesalers, which generally post a price list for a calendar year and then honor those prices all year long. (I wonder how much longer that’ll last).Those orders reflected zero inflation, but of course the reality is that I’m overpaying early in the year and underpaying late in the year.
But for some smaller items it doesn’t make sense to set up an account with a wholesaler. For example, I order Sharpie markers by the dozen from a retailer. Since my last order, the price has increased from $8.76 per dozen to $8.92. That’s only about 2%, but other items are considerably higher. For example, the last time I ordered composition books from Costco, I paid $1.26 each. This time, they were $1.33 each, or a 5.6% increase.
And a lot of vendors are playing games with quantity discounts. For example, last time I ordered three dozen of one item at $0.60 each. The price dropped to $0.50 each on quantity eight dozen, and $0.40 each on quantity 50 dozen. Now, the same item is priced at $0.70 each for under eight dozen, $0.60 each for eight dozen or more, and $0.50 each for 100 dozen or more. I ordered eight dozen this time at $0.60 each, so technically the price remained the same. (Oddly, this time the shipping was actually one cent less, even through I was ordering eight dozen instead of three dozen.) But the reality is that if I’d ordered the same number, my price would have increased from $0.60 to $0.70 each, or about 16.7%.
I’m told that food prices are rising even faster, but Barbara and I don’t track those.