Q: What is GroceryBagSavings.com and who uses it?
A: GroceryBagSavings.com is a grocery price comparison
website used by people who want to save money on food. We input grocery store sale
prices into our database and then sort and organize them to make it easy for you
to compare apples to apples (or steak to steak). There's no fumbling through
weekly store ads- all you do is pick your area and the type of food you'd like
to see. It's easy!
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Q: How can
GroceryBagSavings.com help ME?
A: GroceryBagSavings.com lets you REALLY compare
between stores, between brands and between items. Plus, by showing you exactly what
the weekly sale prices are at every store, YOU decide where to buy based on YOUR
needs. For just a few items where the price difference between stores is small,
you might go to the closest store. Or, if you're making a major shopping trip,
it could make sense for you to go to a store where prices are lower, even if it
is farther away.
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Q: This is a cool site! But how come
you don't have prices from the stores in my town?
A: We're new....and we had to start somewhere. But we plan on expanding
our coverage as fast as we can. We've started with the Seattle area and Hawaii's
Big Island (food is really expensive
there!) and we will add Portland very soon. Our plan is to cover the entire West Coast before the end of the year,
then start expanding eastward. Look for our site to cover YOUR town soon!
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Q: How much do I have to pay to use
GroceryBagSavings.com?
A: You don't have to pay anything to use GroceryBagSavings.com,
it's FREE! No registration. No memberships or subscriptions. No "Premium Access"
fee to get to the cool parts. All you have to do is want to save money on groceries!
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Q: Pork roasts were in the price listings
last week. How come they're not there this week?
A: We only list prices for store items that are advertised this week. If pork roasts
aren't on sale this week at the stores in your area, we won't have pork
roast prices for you. But, why would you buy something that's not on sale???
There's so many other things for you to choose from!!
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Q: I want to know how much kumquats
are at my store this week. Why don't you have that price?
A: The average grocery store carries between 45,000 and 60,000 items. Someday, we
may have prices on every item in every store, but for now, we're concentrating
on the things people buy the most and the things that stores compete the most on.
Those items tend to be in the ads most weeks. Besides, would you really want to
look through 45,000 items every week???
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Q: Why doesn't
GroceryBagSavings.com list prices for beer and wine?
A: We don't have prices on alcohol or tobacco products, health and beauty aids,
magazines or any other non-food items you might find in a grocery store, either.
Our focus is on food prices, and on helping you make informed food buying decisions.
Tracking those other items doesn't contribute to that goal.
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Q: I want to know which store in my
town has the cheapest price on milk. Can I find that here?
A: We sure hope so!!!! We'll always have the sale prices on milk when it's
advertised, and most of the time it is. Plus, as we get up to speed with the site,
we plan to have a "Staples" section, where you'll find every store's
price for milk, butter, eggs, bread, and so on, even if those items aren't advertised.
That way, if you need to grab a gallon of milk on the way home, you can look in
the Staples section and find where to go for the best value. Sometimes, going just
a block of two out of your way can save some significant money!!!
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Q: My store is running an unadvertised
special on jars of rutabagas. Why don't I see it it on your site?
A: We try to catch all the sale items, but stores don't always publicize everything
they have on sale. Or the rutabagas might be a close-out on the 3 jars they
have left. We don't post those kind of prices because it's not a true reflection
of what's available. Should you buy those three jars? If you eat rutabagas,
you bet! But if we put that item on the site, those three jars wouldn't last
long, and that wouldn't be fair to our other users.
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Q: Why aren't similar items next
to each other in the list? That seems kind of dumb, having to hunt through the whole
list to find what I need.
A: You can have the price lists in any order you want! Just click on the column
heading you want to sort by, and the items will sort in ascending order. It's
automagic!! Click the column heading again and and they'll sort in descending
order. Pretty cool, huh?
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Q: I see "BOGO" in the sale notes for
some items. What does BOGO stand for, and why do I care about it?
A: BOGO stands for “Buy One, Get One free”. If your store has bread on a BOGO sale
with a price of $1.00, it means you buy the first loaf for a dollar and you get
the second one for free. There are some rules, though: BOGO only works when you
purchase both items together (you can’t buy one loaf today for a dollar and get
another one free tomorrow); the loaves are NOT 50 cents each (if you only want one
loaf, it costs a dollar); and there is usually a limit to the number of “free” loaves
(items) you can get. BOGO items can offer real savings, so to help you make accurate
price comparisons, our unit cost numbers on GroceryBagSavings.com assume you take
advantage of any BOGO savings offered. That makes it easy to compare BOGO items
with other items, and to tell when a BOGO is a good value.
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Q: These “Mix and Match” promotions
(buy 10 qualifying items, get $5 off at check out time) are difficult to keep track
of when I’m shopping, but they seem like a good deal. Do the prices and unit costs
on GroceryBagSavings.com reflect this kind of promotion?
A: If you buy the ten qualifying items and get $5 off, you’re basically getting
50 cents off each item. It’s kind of a paperless ‘coupon’, so that’s how we treat
it. We put the undiscounted cost in the “Price” column and use it to calculate the
unit cost, but we post a prominent reminder in “Sale Notes” with the terms of the
price reduction. That way, you know how much you’re going to pay, either regular
or discounted, and there’s no confusion.
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Q: I notice that in the “Item” column,
you often list a product weight, but then in the next column, “Brand/Size”, there’s
a different weight. What’s going on? And how do you figure unit cost when you have
two different weights?
A: Whenever there’s a range of weights for an advertised product, the low end of
that range goes into the “Brand/Size” column, the high end into the “Item” column.
We use the low end of the weight range to calculate the cost per unit, providing
the highest possible cost per unit for comparison purposes. On the flip side, we
put the high end of the range in the “Item” column so you know the maximum size
available. Using frozen dinners as an example: A Mac and Cheese dinner weighs 12
ounces. A Meatloaf/Mashed Potato dinner weighs 18 ounces. They both cost $3.00.
The unit cost for the 12-ounce dinner is $4/lb, and that’s the unit cost
GroceryBagSavings.com
will publish. But the 18-ounce dinner is a better value (more weight at the same
price). So, we include the maximum weight information in order for you to determine
what the best value is within a product line.
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Q: I notice you don’t carry any
carbonated soft drinks or bottled water on your web site. Why not?
A: We’re adding items as fast as we can. But we think in these lean economic times,
shoppers are more interested in basic food prices (items like bread, meat, vegetables,
and fruit) than in prices on soda, bottled waters or energy drinks. Everybody needs
to eat, but not everyone wants to buy imported spring water. That’s why we’re focused
on food items for the time being. We’ll add soft drinks and other beverages when
our food coverage is wide enough and going well.
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Q: How current are the grocery
prices on your site?
A: We understand that you rely on us for accurate prices, and we provide them.
If you see an item on our site, the price is current, and you can even see the
effective dates at the far right of each listing. Each week, when the new
grocery store ads come out (usually effective Wednesday through the following
Tuesday), our target is to have those new prices on our site the first day they
are valid. We do everything possible to meet that target for you.
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