Shopping tips - The hidden costs of packaging

You thought this section was to sell you something, didn't you? . . . Well you are wrong!

Yes we do have a shop now and of course I'm going to mention it because it was a major exercise setting it all up. It's taken a lot of work, not only finding quality products at the right price but also finding reliable suppliers. If you believe everything on the Internet, you could get everything from Nigeria or China. However we know differently and have come up with over 1000 products, all from reliable suppliers with a history of successful Internet transactions.

In keeping with our high standards, we also needed a facility to transact over the Internet, a secure encrypted link to accept customer's private information for transferring funds. We could have used PayPal but the costs were prohibitive, this is what we came up with. We called it Mimenta's Creative Solutions Mall

However, the Products section is all about helping you get the best value, where ever you shop.So let's begin with some shopping tips:

Supermarkets aren't saints. They only offer "specials", "mark downs" or discounts for two reasons:

• the product will not keep and they can help recover at least part of their costs (or their storage space cost for a new line of products will exceed the profits on this product).
  
  
• the discount will attract customers in who will spend on other higher profit items, in such numbers that the cost of the discount will be exceeded.

The first reason is cause for concern. Many fresh foods rapidly lose their nutritional content once they are harvested. Vegetables and fruits rapidly break down vitanims because the supply of nutrient rich sap has stopped. Some have virtually no nutritional value after 3 days at room temperature.

They will also resort to deception too - cashing in on customers not comparing prices. Here's a typical example from Safeway in Coburns Road in Melton, Australia in July 2009. The product doubles in price with a wrapper, on a different shelf a few metres away.

The same product cost 100% more elsewhere in the same supermarket - that's a very expensive wrapper!

The same applies to you when you take them home. A bottle of milk exposed to daylight, sitting on the back seat of your car for the one hour ride home from the supermarket has aged the equivalent of two days in the darkness of your fridge!

Milk is very suscepible to ultraviolet degradation. Ironically the flourescent lighting in supermarkets is also high in ultraviolet light.

All plants will continue to synthesise in blue and ultraviolet light, much faster than in incandescent light. To do this they will use existing nutrients stored in their tissue - there went your vitamins!

Put them in a cool dark place like the refrigerator as soon as you get home and not only will they look better but will taste better and be higher in essential vitamins. Many vegetables will loose moisture in the fridge. Rinse them in clean cold water and put them in a plastic bag or container in the fridge - you will add a couple of days to their shelf life.

Become a basket case
When you have to lug it around the shop, you are naturally reluctant to put extra things in your basket. If you have a trolley, you don't mind one or two extra items to push around. This works brilliantly when you have children. Let them carry your basket and put a few heavy items in it to start with (like a 3 litre bottle of milk). They will be reluctant to add to their own burden. I make the kids carry the shopping list too. With a pen in one hand and a list in the other, it's pretty difficult for little hands to grab something as we go past. I keep them busy by getting them to cross off the items we have found. Keep them busy by finding the items and crossing them off the list when they are put in the basket. They will be too busy to be tempted by those impulse items that the supermarkets put out for kids.

The Hidden Cost of Transport

Keep in mind that you also pay money to get there and back again.
Where is the saving when you spend $5.00 in petrol to buy a product on special for $2.00 less than the usual price?

You haven't saved $2.00 - you have lost $3.00 (Petrol costs less saving = $5.00 - $2.00 = $3.00).

Try to make less shopping trips because each one costs transport and is another chance to get hooked by their advertising.

Incomparable Products
Here in Australia we have basically two grocery chains that have the 80% of the grocery market - Safeway and Coles.

Another firm called Aldi's came into Australia. They appear much cheaper, however they are not always as cheap as they may seem. Aldi's use a lot of brands from outside Australia - that's lost jobs for our children - gone. It also allows themj to stock brand names that no-one else does, so you cannot compare the products exactly.

They also go to extreme lengths to make their products incomparable in other ways. If you have Nestle instant coffee in 200gm jars at Safeway and Coles, it will be in the same shaped jar, displayed at a cheaper price but in a smaller sized jar. Not too much different to be really noticeable but smaller - a size you won't find in Safeway or coles. You need to check the prices per 100gms, not per jar.

Update - Safeway and Coles have got smart to this and are now displaying their prices differently. They display the unit price in large type and underneath, they display the price per 100gms. It's a help if you stop and read it but most people don't bother.

In some cases Aldis also buy from the same suppliers as Safeway and Coles for some products, but get them packaged under a different brand same. Once again, their goal is to prevent you from doing a direct comparison with their competitors.

The fist rule is, compare the pair, gram for gram.

The shopping cart trap

This one is a real common trap with young families. Faced with carrying a toddler on your hip as you shop, parents of young families will grab a shopping trolley. Retail market research revealed that retailers would actually sell more if they turned part of their shopping cart into a child carrier. As Mum trundles junior around, she is bombarded by the "I want" and the tantrums, so will be tempted to give in and buy something.

Trolley's eye view of a supermarket

Mum also can put much more in a shopping cart than she could in a shopping basket, so is likely to spend more.

At our local Coles store, they brought out shallow shopping trolleys. With a family of three adults, we found these ideal. They fill up faster than the deep trolley. Over three months, without telling anyone, I tracked our grocery bills and generally they were between $12 to $18 dollars less for the trips that used the shallow trolleys. Unfortunately Coles market research must have been doing the same thing because now the shallow trolleys require a $2 coin deposit but the deep ones are free. I asked the store manager why and he told me it was to stop the shallow trolleys going missing. That's strange because most of the trolleys I see deserted are the deep type, not the newer shallow ones.

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