The Government has launched a new grocery price comparison website called ‘GROCERYchoice‘. I have had a chance to look through the site. Here is my analysis of the site:

What Is GROCERYchoice?

Every month the prices of around 500 different products is collected from 600 supermarkets across Australia.

The supermarkets covered are :

1. Coles/Bi-Lo
2. Woolworths
3. Franklins
4. ALDI (wherever located)
5. Independent Groceries

The products are classified into the following categories (the categories are also called Baskets):

1. Meat and Seafood Basket
2. Fruit and Vegetable Basket
3. Dairy Basket
4. Bread and Cereals Basket
5. Drinks and Snacks Basket
6. General Groceries Basket
7. Household and Personal Care Basket
8. And then finally - Basic Staples Basket (staple products from each of the above categories are used to form the Basic Staples Basket)

Each product is given an ‘expenditure weight’ based on its importance in the weekly household expenditure and its relative importance in the basket it belongs to.

For each product in a basket, expenditure weight is multiplied with the price. This data is then aggregated by supermarket retailer across all regions to report the average price of each basket in a region for a supermarket chain.

The basket prices reflects the weekly grocery expenditure by an average Australian household - The total basket price reflects the total weekly grocery expenditure of an average Australian household.

The website will be updated with new data at the beginning of every month. For the month of August Coles emerged as he cheapest grocer.

How To Use GROCERYChoice

1. Enter your postcode or suburb/town. This will show you price comparisons for the region in which your suburb or post code belongs to.


2. They also have the map of Australia on their home page. You can use the map to navigate to where you live and then obtain the results for the area you live in.

If you would like to be informed when new data is available on the site, register on their website.

My Impressions About GROCERYchoice

• It is a good start. With all the reports released recently about the grocery prices, it is good to know that more information is being made available to consumers.
• The prices quoted for a supermarket chain is the average prices across all the supermarkets of that chain in that region. So we are not getting data for a specific supermarket outlet - We are not getting data for a specific post code - It is all divided into regions.
  
  
  
  

  I have found price differences between two supermarkets (both same chain) in two different suburbs (both suburbs in the same region). So I am a bit skeptical about reporting by regions. The data might be accurate for the region but I am only interested in whats happening in a postcode.

• For the region that I live in, Coles came out as the cheapest, followed by Woolworths followed by Franklins. But my shopping experience has always told me that Franklins is the cheapest. The brands of the products that actually constitute the basket has a lot to do with the final analysis on the site. We might buy different brands to what is in the basket.
  
  
  
  

  I am not 100% satisfied with the results. I have lived in this Suburb for 7 years. Franklins has always been the cheapest and I am puzzled to find a different outcome on the website. I am positive that they have analysed all the data that they have correctly but the point is what constitutes that data.

My conclusion is that this website currently does not provide an accurate comparison tool. The weekly catalogues published by the stores are a better comparison tool.

What do you think of the site…..Start the discussion.

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