Small stores and shops often have limited quantities , and cost much higher for an item than what you can find at the supermarket...
at the supermarket, things are the most cheap... you get large quantities for cheaper than a small-side store for example.
There’s no quick answer to your question. In fact, stores spend billions of dollars every year in an effort to keep people from answering that very question.
Large stores (especially chain stores) have better buying power. Manufactures usually give larger discounts when a buyer buys in bulk. The more they purchase the cheaper they can get it (to a point). Sometimes they pass some of these savings onto the customer (sales) but usually they pocket it (profit). Chain stores have central warehouses where they can store large purchases and then distribute them to their outlets as needed (buy at a sale price, but sell at the regular price = profit). Small stores don’t have this luxury. Their warehouse is usually their store – and store space is extremely limited. To a store, every square inch of space is potential income. This is why some stores (large or small) place shippers or displays of product everywhere (for impulse buying).
Merchandise on the sales floor and/or the backroom is money that cannot be used elsewhere (non-liquid assets). No store likes to have their money tied up where they can’t use it quickly. Unfortunately, one can’t invest a box of Cheerios in the stock market or use it to pay bills. This is why stores carry limited supplies of merchandise. Non-grocery stores also like to carry high-markup items (beer, chips, soda, water, etc.). {Markup is the difference between purchase price and selling price.} The higher the markup the bigger the profit.}
Most customers value time over money - and stores know this. Your average customer isn’t going to go to 25 different stores and only buy 1 sale item (a loss leader?) at each of them. They want to do all their shipping in 1 or 2 places (preferably 1). This is why places like Wal-Mart now sell groceries. They want to be a 1-stop store (get the food as well as the non-food business). This does NOT mean that all the grocery items at these places are cheaper or more expensive than at a traditional grocery store. Many non-grocery stores are willing to take a loss on grocery items if it means getting more customers through their checkout. Grocery stores do this all the time with their non-food items. Most non-grocery stores only sell a select variety of grocery items – ones they think a majority of customers will buy, whereas a grocery store may sell a multiple of varieties of the same item.
To get things cheaper (at grocery or non-grocery stores) one has to be careful and do their homework … something stores don’t want you to do (they lose profit).
Thriftymaid 