What surprises does Santa have in store this Christmas? Photo: 123RF
Shoppers who look beyond the cheapest price tag might be able to save on their Christmas groceries in supermarkets trying to extract top dollar from them, Consumer NZ says.
Spokesperson Gemma Rasmussen said there was a risk people buying the item with the lowest advertised price might miss out on something that would be cheaper on a per-unit basis.
"We know the supermarkets will be filled with specials like multi-buy deals and member prices as we get closer to the big day - using unit pricing can help you cut through the promotions and figure out the best value.
"Grocery shopping can be stressful and expensive at the best of times. Unit pricing is an easy way to see through all the different brands, quantities and promotional chaos. So, instead of just grabbing the big container of custard, thinking it's better value, you can check that it really is. You might find you're paying less per 100g if you buy the smaller container."
Supermarkets are now required to display a unit price for items as well as the overall package price, to make it easier to compare different sizes.
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Rasmussen said Consumer research showed many people found that useful when products came in different sizes or when something was on special and they wanted to work out which size was the most price-effective.
"If you need eggs for whipping up the pavlova, unit pricing will make it easy to see what you're paying for each egg regardless of whether you're comparing six-, 10-, 12- or 18-packs."
Consumer looked at the cost of creating a pavlova at Rasmussen's local supermarket. The shopping list included eggs, caster sugar, vanilla extract, cornflour and cream.
Eggs can vary in price. Photo: Morgane Perraud / Unsplash
"We compared the cost of buying the cheapest and then the cheapest unit price option for each item.
"The cheapest overall picks cost a total of $18.61 and would have been enough to make one pavlova, with a small amount of leftover sugar and plenty of vanilla extract and cornflour to spare.
"When we went for the cheapest unit price items we would have spent more in total, at $37.37, but we would have bought enough produce to make three pavlovas. This version equated to a cost of just under $12.50 per pavlova, with two eggs, sugar, cream, cornflour and vanilla to spare."
She said shoppers would have a lot of things vying for their attention in the supermarket.
"Maybe you've got a lot of things that you need to buy, there's a lot of pricing and promotional activity that's happening with signs and the unit pricing is very small.
"So sometimes it can be hard to give your attention to that, but we have heard that 64 percent of New Zealanders have said that unit pricing is helping them.
"Often when we are looking at a product, maybe you're looking at Weetbix for example, and one packet which is smaller might be on sale and so automatically you think that is a better deal, but if you to look at the unit price of the Weetbix between multiple sizing, you'll actually be able to see where the best value lies.
"We completely understand that sometimes purchasing more is not cost-effective for families, given how stretched many budgets are particularly around Christmas time, but by looking at the unit pricing, it really does enable you to understand the value of a product and how much you could be paying for that."
She said supermarkets sometimes made their savings sound better than they were.
"We would really advise people to try and cut out the noise with that type of with the specials and the promotions and to lean on that unit pricing a little."
She said anyone going to the supermarket at the moment would think there were deals to be had everywhere.
"Supermarkets are really good at creating this feeling of savings and promotions. Supermarkets are experts of customer behaviour and they know the things people are going to be buying around this time of year.
"Obviously there are benefits like things like strawberries, blueberries, raspberries… we get these seasonality benefits where the price of certain items do come down, but I think that those supermarkets' modus operandi is to get as much money as possible from shoppers, and I think they employ really sophisticated technology in terms of those price points and knowing how far that they can push people, particularly around the festive season."
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