Useful Information

Tips for buying foods cheaper at a supermarket

2022.09.03

Tips for buying foods cheaper at a supermarket

Do you people often go to supermarkets? Why don’t you try to buy food cheaper? Today, let’s learn how to make it cheaper!

 

Discount sticker

When you go to a supermarket in the evening or right before the store closes, you often see that many package of foods such as prepared foods have stickers, which is written like 20% off, or half off. These stickers are called discount stickers. １割（いちわり）(Ichiwari) means 10% and １割引き（いちわりびき）(Ichiwaribiki) means 10% off.

 

  • 2~3 hours before the store closes

Prepared foods usually have 20% or 30% off stickers around 2 or 3 hours before the store closes, and they may even have half discount stickers around 1 hour before it closes. However, those items may be sold out very fast. The items which have discount stickers before the store closes are usually fresh food such as raw meat or row fish, or prepared foods. Most of them should be consumed on that day because their expiration date is that day.

  • From opening to 1 hour after the store opens

Vegetables or processed foods which are in stock every day such as dairy, bread, or tofu may have discount stickers in the morning (from opening to one hour after the store opens). They may have forther discount stickers before the store closes. Besides, it may have even more discounted stickers in the next morning.

 

  • On rainy day

The day it suddenly rained, or the day after that day, supermarkets usually have a lot of unsold stock, so those items will be usually discounted. On a rainy day, the discount stickers are usually put on the items 1 or 2 hours earlier than usual.

 

  • On Friday

On Friday, the discounted stickers are sometimes put on foods earlier compared to other day of the week.

  • On a bargain day, or a day with privilege

On a bargain day, or a day with privilege, supermarkets tend not to put discount stickers. On the contrary, they often discount on the day before the bargain day.

 

Bargains

You can buy food cheaper by buying bargains. Bargains are items which are on flier and discounted only the specific day. On weekdays, daily foods such as vegetables, scraps meat or minced meat are usually discounted. On weekends, a little bit luxurious ingredients such as meat for grill, sashimi, and ingredients for hot pot are usually discounted.

 

Private label Brand

Some supermarkets have their own private label brands. These brands’ items are really cheap not because their tastes or qualities are bad but because they can reduce the distribution costs. Supermarkets develop their items with their own technologies, so they often have good tastes and are excellent in safety.

 

Some supermarkets have a sale on the same day of the week.

Supermarkets do not have a sale at the same time every day, but there are general trends. Let’s go to nearby supermarkets nearby and grasp their trends of sales!

 

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