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Many have commented on how 2016 was a rollercoaster of a year. Those who have followed the BCI Index know that only one product in that bundle actually produces variation.
I started this silly escapade to data check my perception that Chex cereals never go on sale. That has proven essentially true at my home supermarket. In the process, though, I've also seen some other patterns. I've also verified that Chex are cheaper at Target. Hold onto your hats. Deep dive time.
Chex went on sale precisely 3 weeks out of 47 observations, always to 4 for a dollar. I love Chex but prefer to buy it a lower unit price than $3.99 for 12 ounces. Butter goes on sale for key holidays - apparently Easter, Father's Day, Bastille Day, Columbus Day and Christmas. At my particular store, they actually jacked the price just after Christmas. Ice cream is a wild ride.
The quarterly summary actually shows that ice cream is more expensive in cold weather months in Pennsylvania. It's cheapest in the early spring. Buy your Chex in Q1. They'll keep essentially all year. Buy your butter in the fall/early winter. Chest freezer? Probably worth it.
The cheapest ice cream crown is well-distributed. Although the store brand has the lowest base price, the name brands are more often the cheapest by a long shot. Some brand is always on sale. Don't be a sucker by paying full price. Mmmm, Breyer's.
I hope you're sitting down. In this data update, I shall reveal that the only thing that goes on sale at my grocery store more rarely than butter is Chex cereal. It's gonna be 'uge.
Multiple brands attempt to manipulate shoppers into pulling the trigger on ice cream way more frequently than the store does with its own brand.
Still tracking prices on a bundle of three items: store-brand butter, Chex cereal and ice cream. The big excitement in the second quarter was when my main grocery store was reorganizing its products and therefore sold ice cream tubs and novelties for $1.50. I should maybe not count it in the index, but then I wouldn't get to tell you how exciting it was to buy ice cream sandwiches and Klondike bars and rocket pops for $1.50.
Interestingly, some of the name brand ice creams exceed the store brand in instances in the first half of the year in which they have been the cheapest offering. Perhaps that's not interesting. Perhaps I'm writing this only for myself.
After a holiday party discussion about when certain commodities go on sale, I got a hankering to collect real data to back up my intuition. Oh, and I have intuition. For instance, baking commodities - flour, butter, cake mixes - go on sale during Thanksgiving week, early December and, to a lesser extent, around Easter. This seems counter-intuitive in that the stores clearly know that people concentrate their baking around these dates. Wouldn't it be wise to jack up prices? Apparently, they believe that price elasticity also goes up along with the baking impulse. They need to force the vague thought about baking into action by enabling us to save x percent on pumpkin filling.
Perhaps less well known is that Chex go on sale before the super bowl. Why? Chex mix. Same reason as above.
So, on my shopping trips this year, I chose three items - store brand butter, Chex and the cheapest ice cream - and monitored prices at my grocery store, which is the rust belt Appalachian powerhouse Giant Eagle. Below are the trends in the inaugural CBI (Chex, Butter, Ice Cream) Index, with high and low prices marked. Note the Chex super bowl dip and the Easter butter dip.
Butter averaged $3.91 per pound. Chex averaged $3.75 for a standard 12-ounce box of gold-standard Corn Chex. The cheapest ice cream (er, frozen dairy dessert - why?) averaged $2.96 per 1.5 quart.
Here are the first quarter trends:
Also, for anyone interested in the trend of what ice cream brand was cheapest week to week, here's that data:
Is there anything
more fun to buy at Target
than wrapping paper?
Chex went on sale precisely 3 weeks out of 47 observations, always to 4 for a dollar. I love Chex but prefer to buy it a lower unit price than $3.99 for 12 ounces. Butter goes on sale for key holidays - apparently Easter, Father's Day, Bastille Day, Columbus Day and Christmas. At my particular store, they actually jacked the price just after Christmas. Ice cream is a wild ride.
