Living here in Coronado certainly comes with plenty of conveniences. As a military spouse I have base access to shop at the North Island NAS Commissary, but often I find it easier to pop into Boney’s Bayside Market, Vons, or Smart & Final Extra! to pick up what I’m cooking for dinner that night. On days when it’s rainy, which yes, are few and far between, and I don’t feel like leaving the comfort of my home, as an Amazon.com Prime member, I now have access to Amazon Fresh, a service that will deliver groceries right to my front door. Having so many options lead me to wonder which stores truly offered the best prices?
To answer my question, I went to all three stores on Monday, April 18, 2016 between the hours of 8:00 and 9:00 am. I wanted to ensure that my research was consistent so I felt it was important to visit all three stores at the same time of day on the same date. As soon as I returned home from the three local stores, I immediately went online to research prices on Amazon Fresh.
How did I go about comparing and contrasting prices? I picked some items that were already on my grocery list, including chicken, avocados, bananas, baby spinach, hummus, milk, eggs, Fage Yogurt, and Thomas’ English Muffins. I then added a few more items, including tortilla chips and salsa, which, of course, I always like to have on hand, as well as ground beef and boneless loin pork chops.
I tried to remain consistent with product selections when I could, but all four stores didn’t always carry the same exact items by brand.
Below are the price comparisons for each of the four grocery stores. The first column is Boney’s Bayside Market, the second column is Smart & Final Extra!, the third column is Vons, and the fourth column is Amazon Fresh.
Boneless Chicken Breasts: The boneless chicken breasts were all different brands and weights, but Vons had the best price for boneless chicken breasts per pound.
Ground Beef: All four selections of organic/natural ground beef were 1 pound, and 85% lean, 15% fat. Smart & Final Extra! had the best price for ground beef, and both Boney’s Bayside Market as well as Vons charged $2.00 more. Amazon Fresh charged $3.20 more than what Smart & Final Extra! charged!
Boneless Pork Loin Chops: Even with the special deal that Vons offers for Club Price, boneless pork loin chops were still less expensive at Smart & Final Extra! by 28 cents per pound, and both stores’ boneless pork loin chops come from Farmer John.
Baby Spinach: Boney’s Bayside Market and Smart & Final Extra! had the best price for baby spinach at 33.2 cents per ounce. Vons, which sold the same spinach as Boney’s and Smart & Final, sold its baby spinach for 21.7 cents more per ounce.
Bananas: According to Google, there are three bananas in a pound, which means if I wanted to know how much I was paying approximately for one banana, it would cost about 16 cents per banana at Boney’s, and it would cost about 27 cents per banana from Amazon Fresh. Boney’s Bayside Market had the best prices on bananas per pound.
Avocados: Smart & Final Extra! had the best price with Boney’s Bayside Market’s avocados only costing 1 cent more. The avocados from Vons and Amazon Fresh cost a considerable amount more.
One Dozen Large Grade AA Eggs: Even without taking advantage of Vons’ Club Price of 99 cents, Vons still had the best price for eggs at $1.50 per dozen.
Half Gallon of Horizon 1% Lowfat Milk: Amazon Fresh had the best price for milk. Smart & Final Extra! had the second best price, but it was still fifty cents more than Amazon Fresh’s price.
Fage Total 0% Greek Yogurt: Smart & Final Extra! had the best price per ounce, but I personally prefer the 6 ounce containers so Amazon Fresh would be the next best option. Smart & Final Extra! did not carry any of the 6 ounce containers in the plain flavor of Fage Yogurt.
Tortilla Chips: Smart & Final Extra! had the best price for tortilla chips. This seems to be one of those cases where Amazon Fresh may look like they have a great deal because their chips only cost $2.79, but their bag of tortilla chips only had 13 ounces. When ordering online, consumers really need to pay special attention to the weight of the products they are selecting.
Refrigerated Salsa: Smart & Final Extra! had the best price for salsa. Boney’s Bayside Market and Vons sold the same exact salsa, but Vons sold it for 70 cents more per container!
Hummus: All four stores offered Sabra Hummus, but containers were sold in varying sizes. Amazon Fresh had the best price per ounce, followed by Smart and Final Extra!, which charged 1.4 cents more than Amazon Fresh. Vons charged $1.19 more than Amazon Fresh.
Thomas’ English Muffins (Original): Smart & Final Extra! charged a $1.00 less than Boney’s, $1.20 less than Vons, and $1.50 less than Amazon Fresh!)
Results:
Boney’s Bayside Market had the best prices for bananas, and avocados, and tied with Smart & Final Extra! for the best price on baby spinach. Amazon Fresh had the best price for Horizon Organic Milk, but if you need milk in a jiffy and want to stay on Island, Boney’s had the next best price.
Smart & Final Extra! had the best prices for ground beef, boneless pork loin chops, tortilla chips, salsa, Thomas’ English Muffins, and avocados. While it sold Fage Greek yogurt for the least amount per ounce, they didn’t offer the 6 ounce size containers (personal size) of that brand yogurt that its competitors offered. Smart & Final Extra!, as previously stated, tied with Boney’s for the best price on baby spinach.
Vons had the best prices for boneless chicken breasts and eggs. Some advertised prices were only available to those shoppers who have a Vons Club Card membership. Even with their Club Prices, some of their other products were still more expensive than what competitors were charging. Like Amazon Fresh, Vons does offer grocery delivery to your home.
Amazon Fresh had the best prices on milk, hummus, and 6 ounce containers of Fage Greek yogurt. Keep in mind that Amazon Fresh is only available exclusively to Prime Fresh Members, and costs $3.85 per week for Amazon Prime members. Delivery is only free on Amazon Fresh orders over $50.
Of course, comparing and contrasting prices at stores can certainly give local consumers some food for thought on where to do their grocery shopping, but ultimately the decision of which hometown (or online) store best meets consumers’ needs rests with individual shoppers. Which store do you like best?
