Grocery Game - Retail Insights and you have a winner

by Deepak Sharma on Monday, May 05, 2008

By reading this TMCnet article, "The Grocery Game helps food shoppers save money", I got introduced to The Grocery Game, a website that claims to save you hundreds of dollars on grocery bill each month. Idea is simple, if you're ready to do a little stockpiling at home, just paying attention to the discount cycles at the major chain supermarkets, can allow you to buy nearly all your food and other household necessities at near-wholesale prices. Match that with manufacturers' coupons and weekly specials, you can save even more than bulk discounters like Sam's club or Costco.

The Grocery Game takes help of "high-low" pricing strategy followed by most chain supermarkets.

In those stores, most items are not on sale at any given time, and on average will be more expensive than at stores like WinCo and Wal-Mart that follow the "Every Day Low Prices" approach, which relies less on short-term discounting, three industry consultants said.
But to lure shoppers into the store, high-low supermarkets always have some items on sale -- and the sale prices generally dip below what's available at the discounters, according to Gault and the industry consultants.

...

High-low pricing was pioneered by department stores in the early 20th century and has been standard in the supermarket business since the 1950s. The quarterly cycles have taken root in the business patterns of both retailers and manufacturers, Lilien said, with managers relying on discounts to meet their quarterly sales volume targets.
Newspaper advertising has been central to the high-low strategy since its inception. While supermarkets now list their discounted items on their Web sites and e-mail coupons to customers, the schedule of the weekly newspaper insert still determines when displays are rearranged and sales begin and end, said Bob Reynolds, a Moraga retail economist and consultant.
"In the culture of the business, even in this day and age, it is that print ad," he said.

The Grocery Store has built a nice payment structure around their service,

For a dollar, first-time members can try Teri's List for four weeks! After that, it's is just $10 every eight weeks for one store. Most areas offer only one store list. But if you happen to be in an area where more than one list is available, for each additional store list you choose, you'll be billed an extra $5 every eight weeks.

Little bit of Retail Insider knowledge can take you a long way. Stay tuned :)