Sainsburys - Absolute Joke/Expensive

Mee

I shop at Sainsbury's when I can. I note that for some brand promotional offers they're often the cheaptest, often beating Tesco's cons and sometimes Asda. In my opinion they're basic range and own brand stuff beats T & A anyday (their pilau rice at 80p is cheaper and far superior than anything from the rest put together. I had given up on buying oranges until I discovered Sainsbury's basic oranges - cheaper and reliably sweeter and juicer than the rest.) .

I shop around - I take the best offers and discounts from Waitros, M&S , Sainsburys, Aldi and Asda. Fortunately, M&S have recently opened a latenight opening foodstore next Asda - yippeeeeeeeeeee

Yes, their staff are great too!

RobertoMoir

As for the "thinking they're better" bit, I assume you mean the tone of the adverts?
I haven't seen any successful supermarket pursue a strategy of saying "We're nasty but at least we're cheap too" for some reason. They all claim to be something above the alternatives in one way or another.

As for prices, I really do think it depends on what you buy: If you're fixated on frazzles then yes sure they might be cheaper in one place or another, even grossly so, but my monthly supermarket shop comes out quite well at sainsburys and less well at other places, both in terms of price and finding the things I wanted to buy.

bitemebankers

The bottom line is, it depends on the type of products you buy. On average, there is very little to chose between the big supermarkets - on an 'average' basket of groceries. But supermarkets do choose to target certain markets and they do so on a per-supermarket basis too, in terms of what they stock.

So, as has been noted, if you buy a lot of cheap booze and snack food, you may well find Sainsbury's relatively pricey, but for decent quality fresh produce and ethically-sourced food, they're one of the best in terms of prices and range.

Ideally though, and time permitting, I tend to use local independent shops for meat, fruit, veg and deli ingredients. We've also got a good healthfood shop that does specialist flours and seeds for home baking. Certainly in the case of meat and veg, what I can buy locally is both cheaper and better quality than any supermarket.

RobertoMoir

bitemebankers wrote: »

Ideally though, and time permitting, I tend to use local independent shops for meat, fruit, veg and deli ingredients. We've also got a good healthfood shop that does specialist flours and seeds for home baking. Certainly in the case of meat and veg, what I can buy locally is both cheaper and better quality than any supermarket.

That's a good point - I get a veggie box delivery, and the price for what I get is quite good I think, doesn't compete to going into a supermarket and hunting down all the basics/essentials packs of veg, sure, but again compared to my normal shop it works out quite well. And that plus bread and milk from the local shops helps me pretty much avoid the supermarket except for once a month, which is worthwhile to me in its own right.

*Jelly_Tots*

missymugwump wrote: »

Mysupermarket.com

My shop is always cheapest at sainsburys
Every time with out fail and my shop varies a lot

Here here ! I was going to say the exact same thing. I always shop on Mysupermarket.com and compared to tescos and asda and the other one (ocada or something?) sainsburys is always approx £15-£20 cheaper then the other two. I'm a cheapskate so I don't buy luxury goods - just the essentials (own brand where possible). If you look into it all the big supermarkets are price fixed (can't speak for Morrisons as they are not on mysupermarket.com).
This is a good article on price fixing. We are all basically being sucked in.

"They are not in reality cutting prices but flexing prices, making them go up and down and destabilising the price structure," Bridgeman said. "All they are doing is introducing so much volatility no one can tell whether prices are going up or down. It can only be to consumers' detriment and it does their image no good."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/22/supermarkets-cynical-price-manipulation

Edit: Forgot to say - I always buy 2 for ones where possible. I also think these 2 for ones are a con as it's been proven supermarkets raise prices before putting foods on 2 for one offer.

P.S. I don't work for Sainsburys

peterx

For myself and family we find Sainsbury a lot more expensive than Tesco/Asda
and quality no better than the rest.People posting positive posts for Sainsburys
do not understand the price structuring of these supermarkets and probably have not shopped around for ages.

*Jelly_Tots*

peterx wrote: »

For myself and family we find Sainsbury a lot more expensive than Tesco/Asda
and quality no better than the rest.People posting positive posts for Sainsburys
do not understand the price structuring of these supermarkets and probably have not shopped around for ages.

I don't see how shopping around is any different to using 'mysupermarket.com'. All prices on the website are up to date and it seems easier than trudging round 4 different shops, which would take all day. There's no hiding from the prices using it. What do you mean by 'do not understand the price structuring'?

JAG

If buying brand name items then Sainsbury's is probably more expensive, but if you use their own brand products instead, which I think the quality is much better then Tesco or ASDA, then it can work out cheaper.

I have found that you can usually substitute a Sainsbury's own brand product for a branded make, and not notice much difference. With ASDA and TESCO you do notice more. It can depend on the prouct. For example Sainsbury's own brand Tomato Soup I can't stand and have Heinz (which is on offer at the COOP for £1.49 for a 4 pack).

If I had the time to shop around then you could save more by just picking the best offers from each of the supermarkets, but since most people only shop at one then they balance out their "offers" by charging more for other items. The net result is most end up paying around the same at each store, but of course it depends on the actual products purchased.

I do agree that Sainabury's put the prices on some items up by more than just a few pence, and have noticed large increases on certain products I buy over the past month or so.

gillian62

We do a lot of shopping at Sainsbury's as the offers are so good, and usually in stock. Our co-op has an offer at the moment, and we tried 3 co-ops today and none of them had the offer, waste of time and petrol.
We have started to look at more offers from other places like Morrisons, and go there.
The secret is only to buy the offers you have gone to buy, rather than end up buying more of your shopping in that store, and cancelling out the savings you have made.

bramble1

I shop in sainsburys, we collect nectar points throughout the year to put towards Christmas, or if things are really tight one month we put it towards the food shopping.

This month we're shopping in Tescos as we've got £10 off for spends over £30 for 4 weeks. Spending more there than i would normally though.