Grocery shopping: paying to save, a good idea?

Services have multiplied in recent years: SOSCuisine, Glouton, Real deals, Miss économe and Tout simply bouffe are the main sites and applications that promise substantial savings, from $2,000 to $6,500 per year.

In exchange for a paid subscription, these services search flyers for the best deals. They also offer a host of related services: nutrition advice, grocery lists, fridge clearers, recipes, best price alerts by email, etc.

A complicated bargain hunt

If the first pages of circulars can offer very attractive discounts, inside, we find items that the grocer wants to promote without there being any savings for the customer. But the objective remains the same: to seduce the consumer at all costs.

The number of players present who rely on attracting customers based on bargains has exploded. It’s a way of attracting customers. Everyone is doing it much more aggressively, especially in the context of inflation, where people are becoming more and more price sensitiveexplains Jean-François Ouellet, professor in the Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at HEC Montréal.

An exploding offer, which requires consumers, if they cannot rely on circulars alone, to analyze hundreds of labels in order to find the best prices. This is where these services come into play which play on this mental load imposed on customers by offering to make work easier.

Pay-as-you-go services

Food waste expert Florence-Léa Siry analyzed to The grocery store these different services.

It’s another world! explains the specialist. It’s opening a box where I have access to several savings and saving strategies.

But how can we explain these promises of thousands of dollars in savings?

It is certain that if I go to the supermarket, buy everything on discount and compare it with the initial price, I will save a lot of money. But would I really have bought these products?

These promises should therefore be taken with a grain of salt, but this does not take away from the services offered.

Each of the services has its specificities, notes Florence-Léa Siry. For example, SOS Cuisine, a site founded in 2008, focuses on nutrition.

[Les rabais]I find them very secondary in fact, because it comes second. When I registered, it was so that I could receive menus or be directed to the menus that suited me.

SOS Cuisine offers several subscription plans which open the door to the best promotions at 18 retailers, but above all to personalized recipes according to the nutritional needs of customers.

The VIP offer also allows you to obtain in-person recommendations from nutrition professionals.

Automated menus

Nutrition is also at the heart of Miss Thrifty’s offering. For almost 10 years, she has sent her subscribers a list of weekly recipes based on the best prices. No comparison of retailers here, Miss Thrifty searches the circulars of the six main retailers and then invites her subscribers to take advantage of the unbeatable from the Maxi chain.

Its recipes are systematically verified by a nutritionist.

At Glouton, we cast a wider net. This website, coupled with a smartphone application, will search the circulars of 20 retailers, including regional chains.

This is their great strength, analyzes Ms. Siry. Even if we are in the region, it’s good to be able to have this reference. With this range, it’s really the one that stands out the most.

In addition, Glouton is the only one, with the Tout simply bouffe application, to offer the best discounts for free.

Warning: overconsumption

Florence-Léa Siry appreciated the simple interface of the Real Aubaines service, which finds good prices in 18 grocery stores and pharmacies. But she wonders, as for the others, about a form of incitement to overconsumption.

Here, pineapple is 67% off. It makes me want to buy some! But am I really going to eat it? This is a bit like the strategy that these services use by telling me: if you buy these foods, you will save $4,000 per year. But what if I hadn’t bought them? This question arises.

The food waste expert, for these reasons, appreciated the last application analyzed, Tout simply food. A service that focuses first on the management of our pantry, thanks to a fridge emptying tool.

Before even checking the discounts, it’s good to go to your fridge emptying tool and create menus based on what you already have on handexplains Florence-Léa Siry. This does not prevent you from consulting circulars and stocking up on interesting products in preparation for future meals.

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The subscription trap

For his part, Professor Jean-François Ouellet reminds us that to save money, you also have to invest time.

For this type of application, there are between 5% and 20% of those who subscribe who will use it correctly. For 80% to 95% of people, this is a dead end. A bit like going to the gym: most people join in January, then from February onwards, they never go back.

Florence-Léa Siry recommends thinking about it before clicking. You really need to draw up your list of priorities: Is it having a food plan? Is it to use what I already have at home? Is it having a menu that is made for me, that I will follow to completely free my mental load?

And Jean-François Ouellet concludes: It makes your life easier to a point, but it’s not going to do the shopping for you.