How long until GroceryWatch sinks from sight?

Thanks to Andrew Bolt, I get to read this article by Dennis Shanahan from The Aus today.


I completely agree with Dennis. I'm like him. I even buy books on shopping - I can recommend The Science of Shopping: Why We Buy by Paco Underhill. Woin Swan could learn a lot about the behaviour of shoppers in grocery stores if he took the time to buy it and read it. (You can too - it's a great read. It is one of the more frequently "borrowed" books from my library. And no, you can't have it. Get your own copy).

I have lived and shopped in many places, and in the end, the primary driver of where I shop is convenience. Ever heard of that old real estate expression, "location, location, location"? Well, it certainly applies to me. I live within a 10 minute drive of 4 major supermarkets, and if I stretch the drive to 15 minutes, I can add at least 2 more.

But do I hop in my car and drive down the road to Franklins in Drummoyne because their Coon cheese is on sale this week?

Get off the grass. I walk to my local supermarket, as I do almost every single day, and buy what we need from there.

I don't care if they are more expensive. My shopping trolley contains two types of items - core items and non-core items. If the basket is looking too expensive, I ditch some of the non-core items. That's how I keep the weekly shopping budget under control. I can save more money by dumping a packet of chocolate chip cookies that we don't really need than by getting in the car and driving to another supermarket. If we went to the cheaper supermarket, we'd probably spend the same amount overall because the non-core items, the treats, would be left back in. Or I'd trade up to a better brand of ice-cream.

GroceryWatch is a complete non-starter for me. Partly because when I am looking for a place to live, I look for somewhere that is within walking distance of the local shops. There are very few locations in Australia where you can find two big supermarkets within walking distance of each other. Two that I can think of are Bondi Junction and Cremorne (both places where I have lived).

And guess what? Even though I had two supermarkets within a short walk from several of my old abodes, I always shopped at the one that was more convenient. In Cremorne, there is a Woolies and a Coles. The Woolies is reputed to be the better of the two - it is even famous as a pickup joint (single people with bananas in their trolley are on the prowl), but I still chose to shop at Coles because it was right next to the bus stop that I alighted from on my way home.

Does Woin understand any of this? Or is he lying underneath that trolley in the photo above, desperately trying to keep it from sinking without a trace?