I have never been ‘into’ these price comparison sites; to me the time it takes to find what you are looking for out weighs the limited cost savings. A new one has just been launched - MySupermarket.com.
The site calculates which store is offering the best promotions that week, allowing the user to compare and switch supermarkets in a bid to save money. As with all these sites the aim is to be an impartial price comparison service covering Asda, Ocado (Waitrose), Sainsburys and Tesco. You select the items you want then compare your trolley between supermarkets.
“Our aim is to help shoppers get the best possible price for their supermarket trolley while enjoying an easier and more consumer-friendly shopping experience,” says the site.
Is it worth it? Is saving a penny on a tin of baked beans or 2p off toilet rolls really worth while?
The process begins with entering your postcode. The site checks which stores deliver to your area and allows the selection of store up front (From Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose and Asda). You then load your trolley, working your way through bakery, the fish counter and so on. The process was simple and quick to load, if a little tedious and dull (as most large grocery shopping is, without regular purchases pre-stored). As you enter each product a running total at the top of the screen is displayed.
I entered a range of products, 27 in all, mostly at random. The total at the end highlighted Asda as the cheapest option (£47.04) followed by Tesco (£52.30), Ocado (£54.33) and finally Sainsburys (£55.33). Sadly Asda do not deliver to my address.
What was interesting was the ‘check it out’ section. Here, depending on your selection, a range of cheaper alternatives are offered with a one click option to replace the original. So the Cafedirect Fairtrade Medium Roast Ground Coffee (£2.27) had the Cafedirect Fairtrade Rich Roast Ground Coffee (£1.59) as an alternative, while the Hovis Classic Medium White Bread (two for 94p) was suggested instead of the Tesco White Sandwich Loaf (77p). An offer on Jane Asher Lemon Drizzle Cake mix was also highlighted (£1.99 each but 2 for £3.50) . It does all seem to work well and quickly too.
One of my gripes concerning on-line ordering from supermarkets in general, is the ignorance of any special offers; so MySupermarket.com scores well in providing the details and top marks for the simple replacement option.
Once done you are switched over to the respective shopping site. Now I didn’t do this but I assume your shopping trolley is transferred to the proper shopping site automatically. What I want to know is how do you pick the best prices from more than one supermarket at the same time? If I want to take bread, dairy and cosmetics from one store but wine, cereal and veg from another. At the moment you have to make two sweeps through the site.
On-line shopping for me is a regular occurrence, just not from any of the supermarkets, so it would be very interesting to hear from anyone who uses this site with regularity what their experiences are. From my cursory play it all seems rather positive.
Nov 07
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3 Comments MySupermarket.com
susan
September 5th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
1why dont you include morrisons?
claire
December 15th, 2010 at 10:11 am
2I have been using my supermarket.com for around a year now and would never go back to using a direct supermarket website again.
This site so simple that anyone who is not strongly confident with computers can get through this site without many problems, the little sections are very handy and include ones such as ‘ideas and lifestyle’, ‘top offers’, the sub sections are also very clear and handy although this means there a lot of them, I would prefer it this way rather then not being able to find my way around.
The site also offers the ‘favourites’ section allowing you quick access to items you buy regularly, a ‘quick shop’ allowing you to write a virtual shopping list and then guiding you through each item.
I personally think the two best assets this site holds are firstly the ‘swap&save’ area. Mentioned above although they have called it ‘check it out’ Alongside this you have the Martin Lewis drop challenge, where they highlight how much you could save if you drop a brand level, so if you were buying Hovis they would show you how much the stores own brand would be, and you choose with a simple click of the button weather you would like to swap or not.
The second asset this site proudly owns is the Maximiles points. Working similar to Tesco’s clubcard points, you automatically receive 1 point per £1. Once you have collected a few you can go to the maximiles point’s website and trade them in for just about anything.. As I normally end up shopping through Asda due to them turning out cheaper I think maximlies is an amazing bonus, I’ve always had a gripe with Asda for not having any point scheme.
All in all I love mysupermarket.com, yes it has its problems such as swapping between supermarkets once one becomes cheaper can be a little confusing and you have to double check all the items are the brand you want them to be(I buy own brands and can sometimes end up with a named label in my trolley) and it would be easier to just pay through mysupermarket.com(although this process is relatively straight forward, just a little time consuming) I would never look back after using this website and would recommend it to anyone, in fact I already have.
Keep up the good work!
sarah smedley
December 15th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
3hmmm, I DON’T LIKE THIS WEBSITE! Joking I LOVE IT!!
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