The day of the week you go grocery shopping matters...Monday looks pretty good - especially for beer:
Bottom Line: Grocery stores are competing for your business like never before. The advent of meal-delivery services, more people eating out or ordering delivery via the ease of app based ordering, along with major retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, Costco & now Amazon.com - is all leading to really low prices on groceries. Competition on price and product selection has been so intense that premium priced retailers, like Whole Foods, have been struggling. Whole Foods has actually had two consecutive years of same-store sales declines (and now is likely to become the grocery arm of Amazon.com in a matter of months).
On back of all of these changes and competition, Consumer Reports is out with research on when to time grocery stores for the best prices. While there is a bit of variance based on grocer habits and ordering dates/timelines...if you were trying to time the best day of the week generally for the best prices...Monday looks like the day to shop. It's an especially good day for beer (at least to buy it). Here are a few of the findings:
- The most discounting occurs on Mondays
- Beer is the most heavily discounted item (average savings is 9% compared to Saturday - the most expensive day of the week to buy beer)
It makes sense. Much of what's in a grocery store has a shelf life. Many of the perishables that didn't sell from the weekend are going to need to be moved early in the week (when fewer people are typically shopping). So Monday's look great for prices and the only trade-off is that the selection of certain, especially fresh items might be a bit more limited but using the 180 theory (in this case shopping when others aren't) could allow you to save significantly - especially if you tend to purchase more perishables.