FWIW, here are a couple of variations on *= :

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Benchmark qw(cmpthese);

cmpthese(
    -5,
    {
        '*=' => sub {
            my @numbers = (2, 3, 4, 5);
            my $total = 1;
            $total *= $_ for @numbers;
        },
        'pop' => sub {
            my @numbers = (2, 3, 4, 5);
            my $total = pop @numbers;
            $total *= $_ for @numbers;
        },
        'shift' => sub {
            my @numbers = (2, 3, 4, 5);
            my $total = shift @numbers;
            $total *= $_ for @numbers;
            }
    }
    );
[download]

          Rate    *=   pop shift
*=    167004/s    --   -7%  -12%
pop   180190/s    8%    --   -5%
shift 188837/s   13%    5%    --