I briefly considered getting a case of Frosted Mini Wheats. Bulk purchase.
Save Money. Right?
$21.48 for 12 or $1.79 each plus tax
I buy them regularly at Walmart for $1.00 plus tax. I like the convenience of a generous size cup and no cleanup.
You better watch your wallet dealing with Amazon.
Groceries at Amazon are often very expensive. Why?
My thoughts:
Because groceries at grocery stores or Wal*marts are darn near zero margin. Many items are negative margin when on sale. They just about can’t possibly be cheaper anywhere else.
Because the only people who would buy groceries at Amazon are looking for something they can’t get locally. e.g. some regional goody from a region they’re not in. Or isolated folks. In either case those are desperate buyers who’ll, on average, be willing to pay a premium to get their stuff at all.
I used to wonder how Amazon made money. They sold books at the same price as Barnes and Noble. But ate the shipping for prime members.
Same thing with tv’s and computers. Amazon competes with Walmart and eats the shipping for Prime.
Jeff Bezos is one of the richest men in the world. Obviously Amazon is profitable.
Amazon recently opened a Warehouse in North Little Rock. 12 miles from my house.
Related thread: Food items you buy online.
Just wanted to say that they’re great for snacking on.
Raises hand, guilty.
Mini wheats are great snacks. I bring them on car trips and trail hikes.
I also like to soak them in milk for about 10 mins before eating my breakfast. The squares are like mini sponges in milk.
Amazon typically sells books at a discount (often 30% or more off); much steeper discounts than typically seen at retail booksellers because they make large volume purchase agreements with publishers and don’t have the overhead of large retail spaces in every city. They make money by trying to entice people to buy into their Kindle ‘ecosystem’ or purchase other items like home goods, toiletries, or electronics for the ‘free shipping’. “eat[ing] the shipping for Prime” is an inducement to buy more crap that people don’t need and wouldn’t want to lug home from a brick & mortar store. Amazon didn’t report a net profit for nearly the first two decades of operation because Bezos followed the policy of plowing revenue from - into other things like Kindle, Amazon Web Services, and monopolizing the manufacturer-to-consumer supply chain for many of their products.
Stranger
You’re surprised that an easily available grocery item is expensive at Amazon?
I noticed Command Strips were at least a dollar or more expensive. Unfortunately it’s all about convivence.
Grocery items are always much more expensive at Amazon. You’re paying for the convenience of not going to the store or getting something you can’t buy local.
I’ve bought stuff from Amazon that should be available locally but wasn’t for whatever reason, and yes, I paid extra for the privilege. Sometimes ordering from Amazon or elsewhere is easier than finding the thing in a big-box store like Walmart or Home Depot.
Walmart and Home Depot have free in-store pickup, usually ready in a few hours.
It’s odd when you think about it. If you walked into the store with a list of stuff you wanted and asked them to go get it all for you, they’d say we can’t do that. But you can do the same thing online and they will bring it out and put it in your car while you wait.
I’ve used in-store pickup. Once I needed a wall clock but couldn’t find it in Target so I went home and ordered it for in-store pickup.
Depends on the definiition of “grocery.” A lot of non-refrigerated items I use are cheaper at Amazon, as well as some specialty items, as noted above. If it’s not too much more expensive to buy locally, I’ll do that.
All hail the gig economy! Down with livable minimum wage and benefits for workers. Bring back the serfdom and noblesse oblige!
Stranger
That’s not correct. The closest grocery store to me has significant markup on food. I can usually get a larger quantity for less money by getting some things on Amazon. Or I could go to the local Aldi, which is a disgusting shithole. I have to bite the bullet on most grocery store foods because Amazon wants to charge a delivery fee for anything from their Whole Foods marketplace.
I try to support local shopping when I can, and use Amazon when I can’t. But …
I have largely switched to making my local big-box purchases via online order then pickup rather than in-person shopping. Why?
Because their websites often say they have things that aren’t actually in stock. If I drive over to to buy it myself on the basis the website assured me they have it, I’m disappointed about half the time.
If instead I order it for pickup, they won’t tell me it’s ready until they found it. Whether at that store, another store, or a regional warehouse. I spend the exact same time pecking at a website and the exact same time driving to and fro, but I spend zero time in fruitless search on their wildly disheveled shelves with horribly inaccurate stock-keeping.
Win win for me. And for local commerce.
What’s unfortunate about that? Time is valuable.
I work for a grocery store chain, and this is definitely not true. Sometimes they are more expensive and sometimes they are less expensive.
Re: free shipping. I am not a prime member, but my wife is. When I look at an item on Amazon, I send her the link via text. I also send her a screenshot showing the price. More than half the time the price will be different (higher) for her.
Sometimes a little higher, sometimes a lot higher.
A three pack of shortbread cookies imported from Scotland showed as $28.99 in my Amazon app, but was $49.99 on hers. Vitamin D supplements were 11.99 for me and 13.99 for her. A wireless mouse was $24.99 (shown with a 17% discount) was $29.99 for her.
This is just anecdotal. I don’t know how their pricing algorithm works.
Also, if I order something and it’s not available they will let me know and I can switch it to something else or drop it.
To join the chorus, absolutely not true. When it comes to groceries, I’m a notorious price shopper, and there’s four regional groceries plus Aldi I shop at. I will often price check stuff that is, say, more than $7 that I don’t need immediately, and I will sometimes find it cheaper on Amazon. For example, I see Bumble Bee sardines locally at $1.79/can. Amazon has them 12 for $14, and I don’t even have to step foot out my door. Now, I do see another store locally happens to have them on sale now for a buck each, so it’s a good thing I checked because it’s time to stock up. But normally it’s $1.79, which is why that item I’ve been ordering on Amazon. I’ve also found certain hot sauces cheaper (and easier to find) as well as some of the pricier olive oils I like.