Thursday, August 8, 2013

Comparison shopping: Meijer vs. PetSmart


Our household has four cats and, of course, they eat, pee and poop. So every few weeks, I make a run for cat food and kitty litter. General grocery stores, like Meijer® and Kroger®, are going after this pet business in competition with traditional pet stores, such as PetSmart® and Petco®. Today, I'm going to do some direct comparison shopping with a PetSmart $5 coupon in hand. Normally, I only buy one bag of food and two buckets of litter but today I went for the higher quantity. The clumping litter uses more litter per week but it keeps the litter box fresher; I only change the litter boxes about twice per year.

ProductSizeUPC Code
Purina Naturals Cat Chow13 lb. bag0 17800 14500 8
Purina Tidy Cats Scoop Instant Action35 lb. bucket0 70230 10785 5


ProductQuantityMeijer PriceMeijer CostPetSmart PricePetSmart Cost
Cat Chow2 bags$12.99$25.98$17.58$35.16
Cat Scoop4 buckets$12.99$51.96$13.99 or $11.99 with PetPerks card$47.96
Subtotal$77.94$83.12
PetSmart coupon$5.00
Total before tax$77.94$78.12

With the coupon, PetSmart would have been less expensive had I bought the normal quantity of one bag of food and two buckets of litter. By doubling the quantity, Meijer is actually less expensive but I bought the food and litter at PetSmart anyway and used the coupon.

Update Aug. 18: I improved the wording of the last paragraph.

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