9 Ways Even Good Grocery Stores Can Steal From Shoppers

main purpose of the coupon is to get you in their grocery store. Once you are in their grocery store, they will try and get you to buy grocery items on impulse. This is why it is so important for you to create a list of items you need before you go grocery shopping, and then to stick to that list. To the extent you are able to do this will directly measure how much you are able to save at the grocery store.

5. Picking the Grocery Store. WinCo Foods is a great grocery store for most items except produce and meat. Costco is not really a grocery store, but it is good for bulk buying and non-perishable items. Walgreens is not a grocery store, but it is good for health related products and for carrying “As seen on TV” items. It is always cheaper to buy from Walgreens than from an info-mercial. Food Max is a good grocery store for most items except produce and meat.

6. Store Brands. Some grocery stores have their own store brands. Buy them. They usually taste just like the national brands and they can be up to 50% cheaper! What are store or house brands? The retailer can manufacture goods under its own label, re-brand private label goods, or outsource manufacture of store brand items to

multiple third parties – often the same manufacturers that produce brand label goods. Store brand goods are generally cheaper than national brand goods because the retailer can optimize the production to suit consumer demand and reduce advertising costs. Sometimes store-branded goods mimic the shape, packaging, and labeling of national brands, or get premium display treatment from retailers. (For example, “Dr. Thunder” and “Mountain Lightning” are the names of the Sam’s Choice store brand equivalents of Dr Pepper and Mountain Dew, respectively.)

7. Compare Oranges to Oranges. A sneaky way that a grocery store can really stick it to you is in how they package a product. You need to determine the unit price and not just the package price. The package price only tells you the cost of the item. If I were just looking at package price, I might buy this jelly because it is $4, while this other jar is $4.30. How dumb that would be if the $4 jar is 12 oz while the $4.30 jar is 18 oz. Always compare oranges to oranges by looking for the unit price. The unit price shows the cost per pound, oz, liter, etc. Also, make sure you look at “expiration” and “use by” dates as well. I have seen items marked down that were expired a day ago. Shame on that grocery store, that’s a health hazard but here’s a way you can turn this around in your favor. You can do this with items that are already marked down. I have seen a $3 item marked down to $0.99. Using this strategy I have been able to get the item for just $0.25! Look at the expiration date, if it’s within two days of expiring, go to the store manager and say look, this is going to be out of code within a couple of days, what are you going to do? Mark it down and I’ll buy it right now. They usually do.

8. Grocery Store Areas To Avoid. Grocery stores are not in business to save you money no matter what the marketing literature says. Grocery stores know what items are really marked up that they make good money on, and which ones they make very little money on. Grocery stores put items that make them the most money in end-of-the-aisle dump bins, island displays,