The Era of One-Stop Grocery Shopping Is Over

Harking back to the days before supermarkets, Americans are dividing their food shopping among more stores to save money.

Consumers bought groceries from an average of 20.7 different retailers between March 2023 and February 2024 according to data firm Numerator, up 23% from the same months between 2019 and 2020. In addition to visiting more stores, shoppers are also traveling to cheaper ZIP Codes to shop and pursuing loyalty programs and promotions in greater numbers, retail analysts say.

Treasure-hunt grocery shopping is the latest example of consumers changing their behavior in response to the higher of prices in our lives, from the homes we live in to the daycares where we send our kids. Now, with groceries taking up the highest percentage of household budgets in 30 years, more shoppers are driving all over town in pursuit of deals.

Every Sunday, Lorin Augeri sits down at her Tampa, Fla., kitchen table with a pen and notebook to fastidiously plan her family of four’s meals for the week and plot out where she’ll purchase each ingredient. Some are from private-label brands only carried by certain retailers, while others are available in bulk or set to go on sale a certain day that week.

Keeping the household grocery bill under $250 a week now requires stops at Costco, Target, Publix, Sprouts and more.

“There are other things I would love to be doing and spending my money on, but right now we need to be focusing on what’s truly essential,” says 35-year-old Augeri, who runs operations for a tourism company.

A new normal

Grocery prices are up 21% in three years, according to the Labor Department, helping drive the trend toward multi-stop shopping, consumer researchers and retail analysts say. Overall, grocery shoppers are making 8% more trips than they did last year, says consulting firm AlixPartners, and buying fewer items at each stop.

Traditional grocers ate up 66% of total consumer spending on food at home in 2022 according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the most recent year for which data is available. That’s down from 69% in 2017.

Roger Beahm, a marketing professor at Wake Forest University School of Business, says some food stores are now leaning into differentiation rather than trying to be all things to all people

“Retailers are looking at specific categories that they can excel in and being able to offer consumers superior products in these,” he says.

Lidl, a discount grocer, is trying to offer the best possible price on the item its shoppers are most likely to buy that week, and ideally hook them for the long haul. For Cinco de Mayo, that means six cans of beans for $4 and two-for-$5 bags of mixed cheese.

“We want to promote many items at cost or below to meet the customer where their preferences are,” says Frank Kerr, who oversees customer experience for the brand.

Stores are also putting a greater focus on their own private label or store brands, which are typically cheaper than national brand equivalents. Sales of store brands were up 15% for the 52 weeks ended March 23 over the same time in 2022, according to AlixPartners.

Worth the schlep

Living in Brooklyn, N.Y., Michelle Young almost always chose proximity over price when it came to food shopping. That was before her youngest daughter transitioned off formula at the same time organic whole milk surpassed $6 a half gallon at her local corner store.

“She wouldn’t want to sleep so she would just ask for more milk and then spit it up and it was so painful, like, ‘No, not my expensive milk!” says Young, a 41-year-old author.

Now, Young relies more on Target’s store brand (where Young says a gallon is usually around $2 cheaper). The family will often use excursions to Young’s parents’ in Long Island, N.Y., or to their second home in the Berkshires to grocery shop for less.

Young’s husband, Augustin Pasquet, has also made more of an effort to buy local eggs and meat straight from Massachusetts farmers. With grocery prices up so much, he says farm fresh no longer feels like a splurge.

Flight attendant Bahadir Senyurt has taken traveling for groceries to the extreme. While he’s long picked up a few local treats to share with his partner, Scott Cocking, when he returns, he’s more recently taken to filling half of his suitcase with staples he says cost less and taste better abroad.

Recent hauls have included the same rosé wine from Paris for $7 that Trader Joe’s was selling for $17, $2 European dish detergent available on Amazon for $15, as well as bags of espresso, pasta, olive oil and bread.

“I’ll survey the pantry before I head out to see what we’re running low on and stock up while I’m overseas,” says Senyurt, 48.

Shopping sales

Roughly two-thirds of the 8,017 Americans consumers surveyed by retail marketing firm Advantage Solutions this past fall said they now lean heavily on in-store coupons before or during their shopping trips, compared with the 33% who said they used them in 2021.

Never one to pay attention to coupons until recently, Augeri in Tampa has turned shopping the sales into a game with her two young daughters.

“We guess how much money Mommy can save,” says Augeri. “The other day I saved $60 and we were, like, screaming.”

In Houston, 34-year-old Ashley McGeary has taken the opposite approach. She threw out her grocery list and is now guided by what’s on sale. McGeary, who works at an energy infrastructure company, says she goes to one of a few local stores almost every other day to take advantage of as many different discounts as possible.

“I’m being more flexible, and I end up eating more seasonally, which I think is healthier,” McGeary says. “It’s a good feeling and a way of still feeling like I got a deal.”

Write to Rachel Wolfe at [email protected]