MySupermarket is useless... don't bother using it...

Lifes_Grand_Plan

Perhaps its just me, but for the vast majority of people, I think My Supermarket is useless and a waste of time.

My reasoning is this - whichever supermarket you start shopping at will (for most people) always be cheapest because you go for what is on offer, so it makes you think you are shopping at the cheapest place when you aren't.

An example - say Utterly Butterly is on £1.99 buy-one, get one free at Tesco and so you add that to the basket. Chances are that Utterly Butterly won't be on offer at the same time in Asda, Sainsburys or Ocado.

However for all you know, Flora could be £1.49 bogof in Asda... you will never know this because you are starting with Tesco as your supermarket...

At the end of the shop you think "yep, Tesco are cheapest for me" when they aren't necessarily.

The only time I can see if would work out is when you have a shopping list of very specific products i.e. "24pk of Weetabix" because then you truly would be comparing like for like...

Anyone disagree or agree?

(Hope I explained all of that well)

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver

I must admit I am feeling skeptical despite using it everytime I shop.

geordie_joe

Lifes_Grand_Plan wrote: »

The only time I can see if would work out is when you have a shopping list of very specific products i.e. "24pk of Weetabix" because then you truly would be comparing like for like...

Anyone disagree or agree?

I agree, it only works when buying specific brands/items. Not much use when you are shopping for the cheapest spread/beans/washing up liquid etc.

Far easier to open each supermarket's web page in a tab and do searches for the item, eg "baked beans" the sort the list cheapest to dearest.

Also, you don't get the real bargains on mysupermarket. e.g. asda may have sausage rolls for £1.50 and tesco have them for £1.99, but that day tesco have reduced a load of them because they are best before today.

Lifes_Grand_Plan wrote: »

(Hope I explained all of that well)

antrobus

Lifes_Grand_Plan wrote: »

... I think My Supermarket is useless and a waste of time.

My reasoning is this - whichever supermarket you start shopping at will (for most people) always be cheapest because you go for what is on offer, so it makes you think you are shopping at the cheapest place when you aren't.

...

That's perfectly true.

However, some of use don't use MySupermarket to compare the price of a shopping basket, we use to compare the price of individual items so that we can go shopping in ASDA for a predetermined schedule of comparable items that we already know are at least the same price in Tesco or Sainsburys (whatever) so that we can get our 10% discount under the APG.

MySupermarket is quite useful for that purpose.

Jamc4659

antrobus wrote: »

That's perfectly true.

However, some of use don't use MySupermarket to compare the price of a shopping basket, we use to compare the price of individual items so that we can go shopping in ASDA for a predetermined schedule of comparable items that we already know are at least the same price in Tesco or Sainsburys (whatever) so that we can get our 10% discount under the APG.

MySupermarket is quite useful for that purpose.

Yes, I agree with that. I use it as a tool to check prices against the other stores not mentioned on items I am looking to purchase. I don't actually use it for the purpose of doing a "full" shop. I go shopping once a week ( to save petrol as well as time and money) I go to all the shops. Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, Poundshop, Asda, Co-op, Morrisons and my local Londis. I check my list of items I need at my supermarket and then check all the website for the stores, check my coupons etc....then plan my attack. Some things are cheaper at Tesco some elsewhere. It works out well for us and certainly brought my £600 over spend on groceries per month down to around £200. So that is money in the bank for me:-)

grandadsmith

The amount you pay for petrol/car running cost to get there/back, likely not much difference overall to shopping locally.

pollyskettle

grandadsmith wrote: »

The amount you pay for petrol/car running cost to get there/back, likely not much difference overall to shopping locally.

Possibly, but I don't drive and we don't own a car so £6 for the bus to town and then £25 for a taxi the 8 miles home means until they bump up the delivery charge to £30, it's cheaper to shop online for me I do use the local butcher for bacon and chicken breasts, which are better than the supermarkets, and OHs sausages but his joints of meat are ridiculously expensive and his mince is more fat than meat so don't bother with those. <<<<< EDIT: I should point out here that I live in a very small village with only a butchers, post office and corner shop. I also buy greaseproof paper from the post office but only newspapers from the corner shop as his prices are so very high.

Back OT, I agree with the OPs point about mysupermarket not being all it's cracked up to be, not only for the reasons stated, but also it fails to compare own brands properly sometimes. For example, Sainsburys ground almonds are somewhere in the region of £2.11/200g, whereas Asda is normally significantly cheaper. If I switch the basket from Sainsburys to Asda with the ground almonds in it, it tells me the item is not available, although if I then search mysupermarket using Asda as the supermarket, it has no trouble at all finding them. Also, a slight size difference in the packet will mean that the items aren't compared properly.

RhiBi

I've felt this for a long time. It also doesn't compare like with like, it might compare tesco own make orange juice, with asda smart price for example!

I_luv_cats

I am a bit sad as I check my shopping via MySupermarket to see if I got the best bargains.

(I always place my order direct with the individual supermarkets.)

There are some data mis-match issues (a) Not all offers are there (b) not all articles are there

pollyskettle

I_luv_cats wrote: »

I am a bit sad as I check my shopping via MySupermarket to see if I got the best bargains.

(I always place my order direct with the individual supermarkets.)

There are some data mis-match issues (a) Not all offers are there (b) not all articles are there

I do the whole shop through mysupermarket at Sainsburys, split the checkout with Asda and Sainsburys, making sure that things that I won't buy from Asda haven't filtered over to there. I then check everything on the Asda order direct on the Sainsburys site and vice versa.

Sometimes I think I have wayyyyyyy too much time on my hands :rotfl:

jamesey39

Hi there,

I'm James and I work for mySupermarket. Thanks for your comments - and I mean that sincerely because we want our consumer site to be useful to everyone. We think there is no reason why someone wouldn't use us to save money on there shop before ultimately parting with their hard earned cash at the retailer they choose - but at the same time we are trying to make the experience better and better, because we want it to be useful.

A lot of users rely on us to manage their tightening budget but we realise we cannot be all things to all people although we are trying

Your comments are very fair. We have to start you with a supermarket so that we can show you what you can buy within your postcode. You can switch store in seconds and we'll show you which items we have had to swap. A really good thing to do is click on the product itself and then you'll see the prices of that product in all of the retailers and we'll even show you if it is on offer so you don't miss out on any offers.

And, you are totally right about the store you start with often being the cheapest. Most of our customers do not actually switch store - they use our site to save money within their preferred store, because we make it easier for you to find the best deals and suggest ways to save.

Please keep commenting as we want to get better.
Thanks
James

Lifes_Grand_Plan wrote: »

Perhaps its just me, but for the vast majority of people, I think My Supermarket is useless and a waste of time.

My reasoning is this - whichever supermarket you start shopping at will (for most people) always be cheapest because you go for what is on offer, so it makes you think you are shopping at the cheapest place when you aren't.

An example - say Utterly Butterly is on £1.99 buy-one, get one free at Tesco and so you add that to the basket. Chances are that Utterly Butterly won't be on offer at the same time in Asda, Sainsburys or Ocado.

However for all you know, Flora could be £1.49 bogof in Asda... you will never know this because you are starting with Tesco as your supermarket...

At the end of the shop you think "yep, Tesco are cheapest for me" when they aren't necessarily.

The only time I can see if would work out is when you have a shopping list of very specific products i.e. "24pk of Weetabix" because then you truly would be comparing like for like...

Anyone disagree or agree?

(Hope I explained all of that well)