The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that Coles and Woolies have started introducing per-unit pricing. That is, the price tag for products won’t just show how much the product costs, it’ll also show in smaller print how much it costs according to a standard unit of measure. For example, for a 500g jar of Brand A peanut butter costs $6.49, and the price tag also shows you that it costs $1.30 per 100g. This becomes useful when you start comparing different sizes in the same product range. Say the 200g jar of the same brand peanut butter costs $2.99, […]

The American retail icon, Costco, recently launched a new store in the Melbourne docklands area, and will soon also open a store in the Sydney suburb of Auburn. While it could be considered similar to your Coles or Woolies in that they sell groceries, the Costco shopping experience differs from the traditional supermarket model. Consider these two types of shoppers: “hoarders” (like me) who buy up big when things are cheap, and “grazers” (like my wife) who buy what’s needed when it’s needed. The pro’s of being a hoarder are: convenience – when you run out of toothpaste, you just […]