Consuming Interest

Shopper's Choice

By LESLIE ADRIAN How much can you save in ordinary, everyday shopping if you hunt for bargains, watch out for 'special offers' and go to a market in a poorer district

or the cut-price shop in Your own? How much difference IS there between the Prices charged at the new supermarket and at the

grocer's round the corner where they are reluctantly thinking of converting to self-service after all these years?

I've heard so many inconclusive discussions

on all this during the past few years that decided that the only way to find the answer was to conduct a small-scale experiment and see whether it proved anything. Last Saturday I went to seven shops and bought the following in each:

1. A medium-sized packet of Daz; 2. A 2-oz. jar of Maxwell House coffee; 3. A tin of Campbell's soup: 4. A 10-oz. jar of Heinz mayonnaise;

5. 2 lb. of Tate and Lyle granulated sugar.

The shops were chosen to give as wide a range as possible. Minders is a cut-price store in Kensington High Street; Gardner's is a large supermarket in the same street; Barker's is the Kensington department store; The Peppermill a self-service store in Old Brompton Road and 15 open late every weekday evening, all day Saturday and for a few hours on Sundays and holidays; Ambrose is a smallish self-service grocer's which used to be an old-style family grocer's and still has a delivery service; Alex is a cut-price store in the North End Road market in Fulham; Jackson's is Robert Jackson's of Piccadilly.

I took advantage of any reductions and special oilers. Here are the prices I paid.

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..!,. ..c Gardner..s ':.'." e ...

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1/9 1/8

1/10

1/10 1/10 1/10

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'oun ...

4ayonn,i,,,, ugar ...

2/3 216 2/3 2/3 2/9 2/9 2/9 1/15 11W. 1/4 1/4 1/4 1/4 1/4 21._ 2/2 2/3 2/3 2/3 2/3 1/6 2/6 1/6 1/3 1/3'. . 1/3 1/5 115

_91_91`i ...

8/31 8/8 8/9 9/I 9/7 9/8

9/11 The least expensive, predictably, vas a cut- price store but, surpr'singly, the one in Kensing- ton, not the one in Fulham. This is explained, to some extent at any rate, by the fact that the Fulham one not only cuts its prices but also gives 'Green Stamps' which you can eventually exchange for a garden chair, hair dryer, set of cutlery or whatever. The most expensive was The Peppermill but the prices there are justi- fiably higher in order to pay for the extra and very welcome hours of opening. The total cost at Gardner's, the supermarket, was only a penny more than the more expensive of the two cut- price stores. Jackson's and Barker's were the second and third most expensive but you can have an account, delivery is free and you could telephone your order.

What does all this amount to? I'm not sure, because I confined myself to shops in Kensing- ton, Fulham and Piccadilly and there may be considerable variations in other parts of London and outside London. I have, however, enough to go on for my own purposes and you may like to try the experiment in your own area. Taking the shops I used myself, there is obviously a con- siderable difference between the least expensive at 8s. 31d. and the most expensive at 9s. lid., but the most expensive must charge something extra to cover its labour charges if it is to go on opening late and on Sunday s and holidays for my convenience. I'll gladly pay extra for this service. On the other hand, I would be a fool not to use the cut-price store to stock up, say, once a week. It's worth noting, by the way, that the cut-price stores occasionally try to pull a fast one on you. You may see a sign saying 'reduced to our price' on a packet, bottle or tin which you can get almost anywhere else for the same price.

If you travel some way to a market you will certainly be pushed and jostled about by other bargain-hunters, you will have to queue at many shops and stalls and you may well find yourself taking your load home by taxi, thereby cancelling all your hard-won gains. In any case, you will have to allow for bus fares when deciding whether you're really getting a bargain or not. A market of this kind can let you have, say, three grapefruit for a shilling when you could pay 9d. each for them in Kensington. On the other hand, though meat, fruit and vegetables will be cheaper in a market, you shouldn't buy these in quantity because they are not likely to be too fresh and may go bad quicker than you can eat them.

You may find a Barker's or a Jackson's slow after self-service stores but you do get more individual attention and you could have an account and do it all by telephone.

In the end, you'll no doubt do whatever suits your convenience and your pocket best—but try comparing prices and allow for the time and energy involved before you make up your mind.