I’ve looked around but haven’t anything. Let’s say I want to buy something. As an example, I’ll say a beef brisket. I have four grocery chains near me, plus Walmart and Target, some of which sell groceries too. Rather than manually combs through each store’s weekly ad to see if anyone has brisket on sale, is there a website that do that for me? An aggregator of sorts where I can put in my zip code and a search radius?
Probably not. It would require all the stores in your area to contribute frequently changing prices in a timely manner. Or an army of consumers (like gasbuddy) to report prices daily.
The average supermarket weekly ad circular usually contains only about six items that are actually below the regular price, all the rest are their everyday prices.
I have never seen one before, and given the almost daily specials that many large grocery stores have it would be difficult to keep up to date. Also remember that grocery stores have thousands of individual items…
Yes, I suppose it’s not practical. But I want it, darn it!
They aren’t usually “specials.” They are continually changing price points, often switching from one mode to another (e.g. shelf price, then a discounted price, then “20 cents off!,” then 3-for-$2.00) without the real price changing much.
It’s called “shelf news” or “product news” and its sole purpose is to snag the unwary buyer and shake up the complacent one and either sell more product or drive attention to others.
No grocery store on earth wants you to sleepwalk between your standard five items on every trip. That’s why prices, especially on things like soda and snacks, and shelf arrangements change almost daily.
Anyway, point being that you’d have a hell of a time keeping up with this almost sense-free process, and no store would cooperate by providing their prices for outside comparison. Besides simple aspects of competition, it would expose the whole game of shopper razzle-dazzle for what it is.
The OP uses the example of a beef brisket. This is something for which the description varies from store to store. On the other hand, I can imagine screen-scraping the websites of various retailers to compare prices of items with identical descriptions or UPC numbers (say comparing the price of a Campbell’s 10 1/2 ounce cans of condensed chicken noodle soup at Kroger and Publix). But do supermarkets list the prices of all of their thousands of products on their websites?
Typically in the neighborhood of 30,000 to 50,000 items!
Note that markets don’t appreciate those shoppers who are hired by one store to go shopping in another store to spy on their prices (exception: “Mystery shoppers” hired by a store to shop in that store itself to spy on the cashiers, etc.). Such shoppers, if apprehended (not sure how they would do that) are expelled. Also, markets don’t appreciate outsiders coming in with cameras or other recording devices, and sometimes even post explicit placards at the entrance forbidding such.
So I wouldn’t expect markets to cooperate with any such plan as the OP envisions, however technically “simple” it may appear.
I suspect that, like so many things beginning with a capital A and named after a river, Amazon Pantry will end up kicking the standard grocery store model black and blue.
I typically shop at one grocery. I have my rewards card, etc. I’m not usually going to go out of my way to save 20 cents on a jar of mustard. I was really just talking about the ability to easily compare prices on more pricey items. If brisket is $5.99 a pound at one local place but on sale for $3.99 at another, I’d save $20 on a 10-pound hunk of beef. I’d drive a few extra miles for that.
If a store is actually offering such a good deal, that item will be featured prominently in their sales flyers. So just scan through the sales flyers for the nearby stores, and you’ll find the big sales items.
P.S. For the other minor stuff, the “20¢ off”, it often doesn’t matter which store you shop at for those. In any location, there are probably only 3-4 wholesale grocers who supply all the grocery stores in that area. So when they put an item on sale (usually jointly with the maker), you will suddenly see it on sale in the weekly flyers from several of the local grocery stores.
The Betty Crocker site will do this for sale (not regular price) items:
The Grocery Game is the closest thing I know of that does what you are asking.
Thanks!
Although not exactly what you describe, we have a concept here in the UK which has a similar result.
It started with Sainsburys Supermarkets and their “Brand Match” initiative, but the competition have similar schemes in place now.
You walk round the store and fill your basket with items, get to the till and your items are scanned. The prices of the items scanned are compared to the prices that the same items are for sale at at competitor’s stores. If your shop would’ve been cheaper anywhere else, a coupon is printed for the difference in price for you to use next time. If your shop was cheaper than it would’ve been at the competitors, the coupon says “You saved £x.xx by shopping here today”.
Has its limitations, in that it only works with branded items, but it’s clever. Either way, the store wins -the voucher makes you return for another shop, so that you can use it, the “you saved” notification stops you from going anywhere else.
http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/ does exactly what you describe. All the supermarkets are online these days, so it’s (presumably) fairly easy to collate and compare all the prices. Yes, there are problems with different descriptions, but it is a pretty good site. They even have an app now.
Actually RiCi got it arse about face: When I check out I either get a ticket that says “You have saved £1.50” - big deal… Or I get one that says that my shopping was £4.50 dearer than it would have been elsewhere, and I get a voucher for that.
I’m sure that’s what I said?
You could also just give them a phone call and ask.
Huh? Is this a whoosh?
No, it’s what my grandma does. Every time she wants to buy something, she calls around to ask for prices. I just thought it worth pointing out that there is a fallback method, if you can’t find a website.