Grocery Price Comparison: Walmart vs. Safeway
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If you’re visiting Northern California and looking for groceries for your trip (or if you live here) you will probably have a nearby Safeway and a Walmart available to you. Today I did a grocery run to a local Walmart SuperStore instead of my usual haunt, Safeway. I was curious to see how much the prices differed.
Being a data geek and trying to avoid doing other things I should probably be doing, I compared 24 items I bought at Walmart with their (online) Safeway price. (Please note that my photos include some items for which I couldn’t find an exact Safeway match, so they aren’t included in the data below.)
Here are the exciting results!
Drinks
Frozen Foods
Deli
Pantry
Paper Goods
Produce
Conclusion
Wow! I was shocked with the comparison. Overall the items I’ve listed above cost $172.59 at Walmart vs. $242.05 at Safeway! That’s a $69.46 difference, or 40% less at Walmart!!
“Pantry items” may be cheaper at Safeway as long as you hit their sales at the right time. The biggest Walmart saving categories seem to be Produce and Paper Goods. But Walmart outprices Safeway significantly almost across the board!
I have a vaguely negative connotation associated with Walmart, but I am not sure if that’s from long ago or what. Is there an ethical issue with Walmart we should be aware of? How do they offer such cheap prices? Please let me know in the comments if you have any intel or links about this.
I hope you enjoyed this unusual Sojourns With Sue post! Thanks for reading!!
Update
A Facebook reader provided this link to me in response to my questions about Walmart’s ethics: Walmart engaged in illegal union busting at California store, U.S. agency says Basically, Walmart has been accused of poor treatment of employees, including not allowing unionization. I checked into it, and it looks like Safeway does have unionized employees, and this may be part of the reason for their higher costs, as well as their smaller size overall.
This is pretty handy in all aspects. Thanks for sharing
I would also be interested to know why Walmart is so much cheaper than Safeway? 40% less is a lot!
Great post! Even though Safeway is more expensive, I’ll be shopping there. I do not want to support a business, like Walmart, that mistreats their employees.
thank you so much I’m certain all your extra money spent elsewhere is going to make any difference at all LMFAO
This is very handy not only during trips but also for daily shopping. Thanks for sharing
Such a great guide and very helpful for my trip planning. Thank you
Wow what a difference! I love shopping at Walmart for affordable prices
This is amazing to see! Walmart here we come!