Supermarket Shopping on the Internet
Most large supermarkets have online shopping .. This is a very good alternative for large, bulky or heavy items, products that you know such as your regular dog food or tinned products are good to get although if you decide you don’t want bags they will empty the containers at your door, so beware if you’re not prepared it’s a bit of a shock.
Once you have ordered most stores have a favourites section so you can just re-order the same products
Try to go for a time slot more then 4 days away as there are busy times and you might have gone right through to choosing the time slot which is at the end of the shop and it isn't available, in other words be flexible and shop in advance.
Be aware that most supermarkets by default give you like for like products so if you don’t want this facility when they are out of stock you must un-check the box.
Supermarket's what you need to know
Supermarket secretes for informed shopping taken from "The Undercover Economist" by Tim Harford
Always remember we are being marketed to …Tim Harford points out that what the supermarkets don’t want us to know is that when they advertise various products on TV with money off, for example: “This week 10p off tomatoes” they will offset that cost against say cucumbers and put an extra few pence on them and on other related products on the quiet. They know that we as the consumer do not look to closely at pricing and generally just see the money off tag and still believe we have had a bargain, which we would have had if we had only gone in to get tomatoes but as both you and they know .. that rarely happens.
Go for, where you can, the supermarkets “Value Range”, I will explain why .. In the supermarkets “value range” there is very little difference in the quality of product, in fact a lot of the products are made by the same companies as the branded products but are just labelled and packaged with a less appealing packaging, in this way they still sell to the people that need the product but understanding our psychology they also know that most people will not buy a product that is labelled in a cheap looking way as it makes us feel poor and we do not want other people to see it in our trolly. Therefore, they are able to sell to both ends of the market and make quite a nice little mark-up on what is essentially the same product.
There are several examples these types of marketing tools in today’s supermarketing world and the more you look the more you see not just in food shopping .. Anyway, its well worth reading Tim Harford’s book, it’s a definite eye opener!
Another recent issue with supermarkets is their bulk buy secrets, supermarkets know that we are programmed to believe that the more product you buy the cheaper it will be. This, However, is not necessarily the case and it is becoming more prevalent. It really pays to look at the unit price of the product not the general cost. We have found a major supermarket in the uk selling 7 bags of crisps for xxxx and 12 for xxx
Also, always buy loose veg where available the mark-up for a little packaging is silly. The bottom line is to be aware of pricing and shop with your eyes wide open, if there is a product you always buy, bulk buy it when it's on offer.