3 steps to cheaper supermarket shopping

More and more people are ordering their groceries online and getting them delivered to home. MySupermarket is a new website that compares prices at 4 of the UK’s major supermarkets that operate online. You can shop at Ocado, Asda, Sainsbury’s or Tesco and for each product it tells you what it costs at the other supermarkets.

Selecting your store enables you to select from their range, however you are limited to items that store sells (for example Ocado doesn’t sell baguettes). £2.79 for a bag of Pink Lady apples are £1.68 at Asda…. I only put 3 products in at Ocado and I was already over a quid down compared to Asda. However it doesn’t just compare prices, it allows you to actually shop and get it delivered as well. Once you have finished you click Check-it-Out and then you can choose which supermarket to place your order with. It also suggests alternative products should your selected store not have the same range as the one you originally made your list with.

I found it slick, easy to use, and strangely interesting and fun.

However, a recent mystery-shopper test conducted by The Grocer of the top five online grocery retailers had dismal results. Given a list of 33 items, none of the websites could find all of them, and only one could deliver the next day.

Tesco (£5.99 delivery) and Sainsbury (£5) delivered after 2 days but with 2 and 4 substitutions respectively. So did Ocado (£5) but with 1 item not sold and 1 item out of stock. Asda (£3.99) took 3 days with 2 missing items, 2 out of stock and 1 substitution. Waitrose managed next-day delivery but did not sell 2 items and substituted 3. Asda was the only store not to charge extra for substitutions.

I think for now I’ll stick to in-store supermarket shopping. Have you ever tried any of the online services?

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