Are Household Essentials Cheaper on Amazon? We Do the Math – CNET

How many times have you noticed you’re running low on a household item, like trash bags or deodorant, and you’ve just ordered it from Amazon instead of running out to the store? I’ve often thrown one of these items into my cart alongside a new shirt, a book and anything else I might order from Amazon, and a few days later it arrives at my door (thank you, Prime membership).

Ordering items on Amazon is easy, and the retail giant’s prices often appear to be cheaper than those at your nearby Walmart or grocery store. You might tell yourself you’re saving money by ordering household items from Amazon, but is that actually true? And if it is, how much?

I did the math comparing the cost of 25 household items when purchased from Amazon, Walmart and grocery chain Kroger. And while Amazon was cheaper than Walmart, it turns out you can save the most money by buying your household items from Kroger with the rest of your groceries. Here’s a full price breakdown. (For more price comparisons, check out how much you can save by shopping at Trader Joes, if it’s cheaper to buy meal kits than groceries and if shopping for groceries online is less expensive than in the store.) 

Read more: Best Grocery Delivery Services

Amazon vs. Walmart vs. Kroger

How I did the math

To figure out where Amazon falls on the price spectrum, I picked 25 essentials a household of two might need at any given time. I looked at items my wife and I have around our house that we buy regularly to keep our home up and running. I came up with a list of these items, and then things got tricky. 

Some brands and quantities aren’t sold across all three stores. Looking up “toilet paper” on Amazon will give you dozens of pages of results. You’ll see Scott, Charmin and the Whole Foods 365 brand toilet paper in varying sizes. Do this same experiment for Walmart and Kroger and you might find that one store carries Scott but not Charmin and vice versa, and each store also has their own brand of toilet paper. If all three have the same brand of toilet paper, the quantities might be different between each store. 

I tried to find the same items with the same quantities across each store’s website to make this as fair as possible. There was one instance (Colgate toothpaste) for one store (Kroger) where I had to add the price of two packs together to make the quantities equal for all three stores. Otherwise, I found each item in each online store. (A caveat: I looked up all these prices on the same day in November, but it’s possible that they will fluctuate over time.) 

Why compare Amazon, Walmart and Kroger?

Amazon, Walmart and Kroger lead the online grocery market in the US, according to Statista. Walmart represents nearly 28% of grocery e-commerce sales, Amazon has about 21% and Kroger has about 10%. Kroger has also proposed a merger with grocery chain Albertsons, which would help bolster Kroger’s online sales if it goes through.

Verdict: You can save more at Kroger despite not having the lowest prices on most items

The overall total for these 25 items at Kroger was $218.78. The total at Amazon was $254.86, and the total at Walmart was $261.19.

There were plenty of items that were cheaper on Amazon and Walmart, and the two tied for the lowest price of an item eight times. Kroger, by comparison, was only the cheapest option for four items, but Kroger maintained competitive prices for almost every other item. Where Kroger was the most expensive option for a given item, it wasn’t significantly more expensive — and ultimately saved you when you added it all up. 

The prices for some Amazon and Walmart items, on the other hand, were considerably higher. A six-pack of Bounty paper towels, for example, costs $28 on Amazon compared to Walmart’s $11.77 and Kroger’s $11. Similarly, eight rolls of Angel Soft toilet paper costs $19.98 at Walmart compared to Amazon’s $7.30 and Kroger’s $7.

What about the cost of membership programs?

I didn’t include the cost of membership programs above because you don’t need one to order these items from the three online stores. However, these memberships do offer fast shipping, and if you’re going to buy all your items from one online store, it might save you money on shipping over time. 

If we include the cost of Amazon Prime, Walmart Plus and Kroger Boost, Kroger stays the cheapest, but Walmart takes second place and Amazon becomes the most expensive option.

If you buy all your household essentials at one place, you would save the most by buying them through Kroger. Even including the cost of membership programs, Kroger remains the cheapest.

For more, check out whether Costco is really cheaper than a grocery store and how much you can save with streaming services versus cable.

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