About a month’s salary. It seems hard to believe, but that’s how much you can save by going from a supermarket to a discount store, or to the cheapest supermarket in town: 1700 euros. Shopping in the supermarket can always be convenient, but it is not necessarily the best choice for your pockets. As every year, Altroconsumo conducted the national survey on large-scale distribution (GDO), obtaining general trends and tables of convenience city by city. In 2021, the study expanded the field of investigation even further: 70 cities involved, 1.6 million prices of 125 different products detected on the shelves, almost 1,150 stores sifted.
It is not surprising that the cheapest brands are almost always discount stores, but with regard to this type of large-scale distribution, Altroconsumo notes an ongoing trend that it defines as “supermarketization”. It means that discounters are becoming more and more refined, bright, aesthetically pleasing and, above all, with a greater share of branded products. All this without losing convenience.
But be careful: as we will see, not all discounters are the same. And not in all areas of Italy it is easy to save money simply by changing. In fact, the consumer organization underlines that in the south and especially in the islands there is less competition, therefore less choice and savings for the customer. Some examples? In Potenza, Sassari, Reggio Calabria and Foggia (but also in Pesaro and Pistoia, central Italy) going shopping in a cheaper point of sale, the maximum you can save is 2%, about one hundred euros. In the north, however, the unfaithfulness of the trolley pays ten times more: the annual expenditure can be reduced by 20% in Rovigo (Italian record with 1720 euros of potential savings), Reggio Emilia and Modena (1523 euros), Brescia and Ravenna (1400 euros ). And as mentioned, the maximum saving for the average family is around 1700 euros per year.
Here are the most convenient chains for three types of shopping: economic, mixed or brand.
Mixed spending. It is perhaps the most common among Italian families: it consists in placing products of famous brands – a little more expensive – alongside others with the logo of the sign, passing through lesser-known brands. In this category Altroconsumo assigns the palm of the most convenient to Eurospin, while the least economic is Todis. Since discounters do not always have very large assortments, the organization has also drawn up a “sub-ranking” which always includes mixed shopping, but only between supermarkets and hypermarkets. Here it is Famila who wins, while Esselunga and Carrefour are the least convenient.
Economic spending. The most extreme followers of the philosophy of saving, those who choose only the cheapest products for any category of goods, would do well to orient themselves on Aldi and in general on discounters, which occupy the first eight positions of the ranking. Todis is the least convenient, again among the discount stores, resulting on an equal footing with Esselunga superstore. An unusual combination that Altroconsumo explains with the fact that Esselunga has launched a series of first-price products, a choice that has obviously improved its convenience. In the last place is Carrefour Market, which unlike Carrefour has small stores, on average more expensive.
Brand shopping. Finally, there are the irreducible consumers of the brand, those who choose the most well-known brands at whatever cost. For this category Altroconsumo puts two supermarkets (Carrefour and Spazio Conad) and one superstore (Famila) in first place. However, it must be said that there are only five points of difference between the first and last classified in this ranking: it means that the saving possibilities, passing from one chain to another, are limited.
The pandemic changes prices. Finally, Altroconsumo has isolated eight types of products, comparing the average price of 2021 with that of 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. The result is that six out of eight have increased. And two basic products such as flour (+ 27%) and tomato puree (+ 22%) are more expensive. According to the organization, flour may have suffered the “premium” effect, ie the increase in more sought-after and niche products that raise the average price. Also on Emmenthal (+ 11%) and floor detergents (+ 8%) driven by products that also offer sanitation, more expensive and more sought after in an era marked by the fear of contagion. Just mentioned increases for pasta and frozen spinach (respectively +2 and + 1%), while the price of hand cream is identical and that of soap slightly dropped (-1%).
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