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.
| Product | Size | UPC Code |
| Purina Naturals Cat Chow | 13 lb. bag | 0 17800 14500 8 |
| Purina Tidy Cats Scoop Instant Action | 35 lb. bucket | 0 70230 10785 5 |
| Product | Quantity | Meijer Price | Meijer Cost | PetSmart Price | PetSmart Cost |
| Cat Chow | 2 bags | $12.99 | $25.98 | $17.58 | $35.16 |
| Cat Scoop | 4 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.
Update Aug. 18: I improved the wording of the last paragraph.
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