WARNING coca-cola glasses are dangerous!

Charliezoo

I've had these glasses for years and have about 10 in the cupboard. I lost one a few years ago when it chipped but other then that they've been fine so I would put it down to bad luck rather then them being dangerous. I've compared them to other cheapish glasses I've got and they don't seem any more thin or fragile.

I guess if enough people complain then Mc D's / Coke will just not offer the glasses in the future and people will miss out.

System

Calmdown wrote: »

I'm a new poster on here but have been reading the forum for some years.

As a retired businessman I thought I should make a comment here.

The argument over 'freebies' and whether they are free has been going on for years/decades/centuries :undecided. It has, generally, been accepted that any 'giveaways', discounts, bonuses etc are at a cost to the consumer - but not an obvious one.

The cost of all these things usually come into the categories of 'advertising', 'promotion' or 'publicity'. In which case, they affect the headline price. In effect, they don't appear to cost the consumer but actually do so - however minimal.

Yes i understand this premise. If you buy any product then there is a cost factored into the product for marketing. This is obviously passed onto the customer.

I would assume that when you buy a meal from Mcdonalds at £4 some of that price is marketing costs. When you get the free glass for £4 they probably reduce marketing costs in other areas so make up for the cost of the glass. Therefore before you were paying a fraction towards an advert on a billboard now you are paying a fraction towards the glass.

However in real terms for a consumer they have been given a free glass. They have paid no more to receive the glass than if they didn't get the glass. Therefore I would class the product as a "free product".

gee_cee

personally i've had two shatter at home now and when they break they break in to really nasty shards

clewleswan

arcon5 wrote: »

If for example the standard price of a large meal costs £3.89 (and hasn't been artificially increased to take in to consideration a future promotion)...
Then a promotion begins... Free glass with every large meal, price £3.89.
The difference in price is zero, therefore it is free from charge for the consumer.

So how can you argue that this isn't 'free'?

I'll try once again because I'm worried about the lack of understanding here. This is basic stuff after all. I'll break it down into small chunks.

First, lets set ourselves up a pretend company. We'll call it MonkeyDogFish Trading (I haven't checked if the company exists).

MonkeyDogFish Trading sells, I don't know, lets say it sells bags of fresh air.

MonkeyDogFish has set a target to make £100 net profit for 2012, and another £100 in 2013.

The cost of making bags of air is £1 per unit.

The marketing team has worked out based on past experience that it costs £30 to build enough awareness to sell 100 bags of air in a year.

So what must the retail price be if they estimate sales of 100 units?

Well they want to make £100, and it costs £100 to make 100 units, plus £30 to sell them, that means to sell 100 units, they have to spend £130, so to meet their profit target they have to bring in £230 (the £100 manufacturing cost + £30 marketing cost + £100 target profit).

Divide that £230 by 100 and you get the retail unit price of £2.30.

If there was no marketing spend, the cost would only need to be £2, except it wouldn't, because without the marketing spend not enough people would buy the product, so the company would lose money.

The £3.89 price tag that you are so familiar with doesn't fluctuate wildly because all these factors and others are built into the annual forecast and business plan.

So hopefully now its been broken down for you into simple primary school level arithmetic, you'll be able to see, that nothing is free

And picking up on the other point, that a complaint automatically suggests that compo is being sought. Isn't that just ridiculous? Lets give the Coca Cola company a bit of credit. Lets assume they really don't want kids to swallow broken glass. Would they not want to know what had happened? If you ran a company (an actual one, not one that gives stuff away for free), would you not want to know what about your customer's experiences? So far we've learned that your company will give stuff away for free and wont listen to its customers. I hope your future investors aren't reading this.

Also, I saw someone suggest that they'd cut themselves with a knife while peeling potatoes, and should we therefore ban knives? Another ridiculous analogy. A knife is meant to be sharp. You wouldn't give a sharp knife to a child. A drinking glass is not a knife. I was trying to think of my own analogy to make people realise just how silly that one is but quite honestly, I can't think of one silly enough.

pulliptears

gee_cee wrote: »

personally i've had two shatter at home now and when they break they break in to really nasty shards

What other glasses do you have at home and how many of them in comparison to the free glasses?

Of those glasses which do you use most frequently?

When you have had glass break on you before how did it break?

It's not as simple as saying "I've had one of those glasses shatter!" is it? I'm going to astound you now and tell you I have had one break as well! Wow!

Now when I tell you the majority of glasses in this house are freebie coke ones aside from a couple of whisky/wine glasses used once or twice a year. And that the free glasses are used daily by 4 people in the house its not surprising they are more likely to break is it?

As for the breaking into shards. Yes, thats typically how glass breaks, unless its safety glass in which case it breaks into teeny tiny pieces.

Calmdown

goater78 wrote: »

Yes i understand this premise. If you buy any product then there is a cost factored into the product for marketing. This is obviously passed onto the customer.

I would assume that when you buy a meal from Mcdonalds at £4 some of that price is marketing costs. When you get the free glass for £4 they probably reduce marketing costs in other areas so make up for the cost of the glass. Therefore before you were paying a fraction towards an advert on a billboard now you are paying a fraction towards the glass.

However in real terms for a consumer they have been given a free glass. They have paid no more to receive the glass than if they didn't get the glass. Therefore I would class the product as a "free product".

That's why I said the argument has been going on for years .

The way this thread has gone is one of the reasons I haven't posted before. I don't like the way they seem to end up with vituperative exclamations!

I see the purpose of this thread as being a simple warning from a distraught mother. Everything else is extraneous!

She is dealing with the supplier in the way she thinks best and good luck to her. She wasn't asking for an opinion - or sympathy.

It would have been so much nicer to just sympathise with her and let the warning be taken, or not taken, as the case may be.

System

Its a too simplistic overview of business and shows a lack of awareness in how business works. The price of the product above is £2.30. The price is set at £2.30 because that factors in profits and costs.

One day MonkeyDogFish decides to use a different form of advertising. Instead of say an advert on TV they instead give out a free glass with the bag of air.

Before the customer was paying £2.30 for a bag of air, plus an advert on TV and the making costs of the product.

Now the customer is paying £2.30 for a bag of air, a free glass and the making costs of the product.

They have received a free product for the same price. The fact that before they contributed towards a TV advert/billboard advert etc. is completely irrelevant.

gee_cee

pulliptears wrote: »

What other glasses do you have at home and how many of them in comparison to the free glasses?

Of those glasses which do you use most frequently?

When you have had glass break on you before how did it break?

It's not as simple as saying "I've had one of those glasses shatter!" is it? I'm going to astound you now and tell you I have had one break as well! Wow!

Now when I tell you the majority of glasses in this house are freebie coke ones aside from a couple of whisky/wine glasses used once or twice a year. And that the free glasses are used daily by 4 people in the house its not surprising they are more likely to break is it?

As for the breaking into shards. Yes, thats typically how glass breaks, unless its safety glass in which case it breaks into teeny tiny pieces.

we had 2 of the free glasses and they both broke within a week of each other , yet we have glasses in our cupboard that have been used for a lot longer periods and didn't end up giving my girlfriend 2 stitches in her hand !
i thought all glasses now had to be made from safety glass that shatters in to small squares rarther than shards. But i may be wrong on that point.
The point im trying to make is that these glasses do seem to break a lot easier than most.

gee_cee

just google mcdonalds coke glasses breaking

lovinituk

gee_cee wrote: »

The point im trying to make is that these glasses do seem to break a lot easier than most.

Whereas others, including myself, have had the exact opposite experience. So a handful of people saying that their Coke glasses broke does not mean that all batches of them ever made are dangerous and should be recalled. If that was the case we would all be drinking out of plastic beakers.