That's what I love about my wife: She double, triple, quadruple checks everything--she knows if it's really a bargain, she understands "every day low price", she gets all the little tricks. When it comes to shopping, you can't get anything past her no matter what's being sold. It's amazing. If there's something I need, I just tell her what and she finds the best quality at the lowest price.
If only I was like that! I'm one of those guys who walks in, finds what I want at the first place I go, and walks out again while the retailers rub their hands in glee.
Well, that's great to have your personal "price scout". :)
It is, however, much easier today with the internet. Especially in a rural area like yours. To compare prices "on foot" is often a waste of time - you run around for hours and spend $5 on fuel, to finally save $2 on the goods.
I know people who do this still. They study all the flyers for special offers, and then spend half the saturday to go from one supermarket to the next. At the end they have saved 3 bucks with luck. Or they have spend money on a "bargain" good, which else they wouldn't have bought at all.
I have all my food related shopping delivered to my house, after ordering via the internet, since about a year now. It doesn't cost much more than going to the supermarket myself. And I don't like supermarkets, plus I don't have a car, so delivery is really convenient.
I think this system will still grow in the future. Many people don't know about it yet, but once they try it, they will think twice about wasting their time pushing shopping trolleys again. And also, its more environmental friendly and efficient, than thousands of people driving around in their cars. And it creates jobs, too.
Oh, I didn't mean she physically went around comparing prices--she's all prepared before we every leave the house. After all, there's no point in burning two dollars of gas to save a dollar on groceries! We don't have grocery delivery available here just yet, but I'm sure it'll come around ... it's especially useful for people like us who don't really like to go out into crowds. It might be a good way to limit the spread of illnesses, too.
Yes, it has a lot of advantages, for the relatively small price. I pay 50 Euro for 6 month delivery service, that goes monday to saturday from 9am to 10pm (you can pick a 2 hour window inside this time frame). Usually I order once a week, so its 2 Euro per delivery, give or take. Which is about $2 .20 - that is the best deal ever, as it saves me at least an hour of time, searching around in the supermarket, standing in a queue at the till among coughing and sneezing people, and then hauling the stuff home somehow.
But I can see why they hesitate to implement such a service in your area. Its of course much more economic to do this in a densely populated area. I mean, even here I wonder how they make this work. Even a poorly paid delivery driver here gets about 12 to 14 Euro per hour, plus the cost for the vehicle (a small truck with a refrigerated box body). So he would have to do at least 8 or 9 deliveries per hour just to break even - incuding the driving time and all. That seems hardly possible, unless there is a customer in every second house or so. And no - the goods are not more expensive than in an average supermarket.
I wonder if they're using it as a loss leader--taking a loss on the delivery costs in return for getting more customers, and making up for it in bulk sales. Honestly, I don't know much about how that works.
They do have a pickup service at our local Wal-Mart, where you can place your order and they'll bring it out for you. Personally, I'd still rather walk around and look at the stuff, but you're right about standing in a queue.
Its possible they use the delivery service to bind customers to the brand. In Germany, there are 2 major players in the supermarket business, that is REWE and EDEKA. And then there are the discounters ALDI and LIDL, but they serve a different customership, since they dont sell fresh stuff like meat or vegetables or dairy products.
In the supermarkets EDEKA is slightly in the lead - but in the delivery service they are way behind the curve. REWE instead has build up this service nicely and they seem to orientate on the Amazon principle: the customer always comes first. I was also a bit reluctant at first, as you say I also like to see first what I get. I was a bit worried they might put the stuff that soon runs out on the "best before date" in the deliveries or tricks like that. But thats not the case at all. And if something is not the way you expected, they refund you at once. The other day the driver forgot to book in the empty bottles I returned, so I didn't get my deposit back for them. So I called them a few days after, and they just refunded the 6 Euro no questions asked.
Perhaps they have spotted a way to conquer a complete new market before their nemesis EDEKA can take that over as well. And every customer who orders at REWE wont go shopping anywhere else anymore.
Could be--in which case, it's a smart strategy.