Little ribbons that used to come in every battery compartment to lift the batteries out with??

Question

Whatever happened to the little ribbons that used to come in every battery compartment to lift the batteries out with? You dont seem to get them anymore......

Answer 1

Money.  

As consumers asked for ever cheaper goods, and manufacturers struggled against ever increasing overhead,  the cost became significant.  

If you produce a million battery powered devices, and the cost of the ribbon with it's rivet, once installed (labor) became a mere one cent per device, the bottom line would shrink by ten thousand dollars. Once the ribbon for several batteries rose to ten cents, and volume increased to several million, the bottom line difference became millions of dollars.

Just think:  you could become a millionaire by saving a mere ten cents per unit in a production volume of ten million or more.

Such are the "economies of scale".

You can't think of such things as a percentage of the price you pay for an item.  Think of them as a percentage of the net profit realized by the manufacturer, especially one squeezed by a mega retailer like WalMart or Target.  Every penny counts.