Almost 20 percent separate online stores.
This week, the corona measures have been tightened sharply, and we will be as in contact with others as possible. If you have not already done so, it may be a good time to add your grocery shopping online as well.
Therefore, this week Nettavisen has price checked the three online stores for food of a certain size that are found in Norway: Kolonial.no, Meny.no and Coop Hjemlevering.
When Kiwi, Coop Extra and Rema 1000 are about to be the cheapest, the difference is usually a penny or three when the shopping cart is summed up. In online stores, on the other hand, there are extreme effects.
Also read: Introduces new measures in grocery stores in Oslo
18 percent price difference!
The weekly trade at Coop in this test is almost NOK 300 more expensive than at test winner kolonial.no – the price difference is as much as 18.4 percent!
– Here we have unfortunately come out a little unlucky, especially on fruit and vegetables. We promise to come back stronger, says Harald Kristiansen, communications manager at Coop Norway.
You can find the price table a little further down in the case!
Rune Kaino Nikolaisen from the website Gjerrigknark.com encourages people to compare prices before choosing a home delivery service.
– The online food test clearly shows that there is a lot of money to be saved by doing just that.
He also has another call:
– Check if your local grocery store also offers home delivery for free or at a reasonable price during these corona times. Then you can beat two birds with one stone, support local businesses and at the same time get the goods brought home.
As cheap as Kiwi
While Coop is leaving in terms of price, kolonial.no is almost as cheap as Kiwi. We do not include physical stores in this test, but a reference check of the goods showed a tier in Kiwi’s favor, and then the delivery cost is included.
– For all practical purposes, the price is the same. It should also be smart for the wallet to shop with us, says Tor Erik Aag, commercial director of Kolonial.no.
Two of the items in the shopping cart were not in equal volume in the Kiwi store we checked in. But even without these items, the difference is not greater than a few tens of a total of around 1600 kroner.
AS KIWI: – We have grown strongly and therefore we can now compete on price. At the same time, we have a selection that a large supermarket says, Tor Erik Aag, commercial director of Kolonial.no
Photo: Nina Lorvik (Mediehuset Nettavisen)
Aag talks about a tremendous growth in 2020, and especially after the corona outbreak. Turnover this year will probably have doubled from 2019, to around two billion kroner.
– We are growing strongly and therefore we can compete harder on price.
Kolonial should be as cheap as the low-price chains on the items that sell the most, but at the same time have as good a selection as a large Meny store, Aag claims. The store buys the discount items through the Rema 1000 system.
Also read: Test of food prices: Huge differences and sharp price jumps in pizza tests
Here is the table that shows the different prices:
Where there are different items in terms of weight or volume, we have picked the closest option. See explanation of the discrepancies just below the table.
Pork tomatoes
This week’s shopping cart is intended to represent an average weekly shopping for a family of four. We have mostly selected well-known brands, to facilitate the comparison.
There are many roughly equal prices, but in the selection of fruit and vegetables there is a big impact. While both kolonial.no and meny.no allow you to buy purchased fruit and vegetables in bulk, Coop only offers pre-packaged goods.
This means, for example, that instead of loose-weight tomatoes with a kilo price of around NOK 30, you must choose Coop’s organic brand Änngamark, wrapped in Styrofoam cups with a plastic vacuum. Then the kilo price will be over 100 kroner.
UNFORTABLE: – Here we have unfortunately come out a little unlucky, especially on fruit and vegetables. We promise to come back stronger, says Harald Kristiansen, communications manager at Coop Norway
Photo: Halvor Ripegutu
The shopping cart from Meny was 9.4 percent more expensive than on Kolonial.no. Knut Nyløkken, director of e-commerce in Meny, points out that not everything in the test is completely comparable, as if the juices are not the same size. He also claims that the chicken is not of the same quality and that the level of service on the delivery windows is different.
– In Meny we must be the best in selection, quality, fresh produce and meal solutions, both in store and online, we have the same selection and prices in both places. For particularly good purchases, we recommend checking out our weekly offers and regular bargains, which are very visible in the online store and which we have hundreds of every week.
Also read: Kolonial.no to million lawsuit against Coop
Missing solution
Coop’s online store was created in April, as a direct response to the corona outbreak. The service is not good enough yet, admits Harald Kristiansen, communications director at Coop.
– Coop Hjemlevering was made record fast and rolled out all over the country within a few weeks. So we unfortunately have a number of childhood diseases that our more established online competitors have had several years to weed out.
In the Coop store, you can not pick either potatoes or onions loosely, and the store does not state the price per kilo, but only the unit price, for example apples and bananas. The other stores state both unit price and kilo price. Harald Kristiansen, communications director at Coop Extra, explains this as follows:
– This is because the solution is made very quickly. We do not currently have a technical solution for road products.
It provides a somewhat scaled-down range that ensures the most basic needs, Kristiansen points out.
– That it makes us come out more expensive is regrettable and we are working to improve the fruit and vegetable range in the solution.
Must go out for beer
Another thing that pulls down is that Coop does not offer beer sales. It does not have all the world to say for the price competition. But if a little beer is part of a large purchase, you will have to go to the physical store anyway if you use Coop’s online store.
Kristiansen explains this with logistics challenges related to grants in the municipalities.
– We are considering opportunities to solve this in the future. On the other hand, we will probably launch tobacco and medicines at Coop Hjemlevering in the coming weeks.
If you choose one of the competitors, you will for the final sum from Coop be able to buy a six-pack of beer, and lots of goodies and chocolates as well.
Also read: The price cut for Kiwi can have consequences for Coop: – Goes hard beyond competitiveness
Delivers throughout the country
However, a limitation in the cheapest online store is that only people in Eastern Norway can still use it. So far, Colonial has no plans to change this as they will tell about:
– We cover about half of Norway’s population now – from Halden and the Grenland area in the south and up to Lillehammer, says Aag.
Meny and Coop both deliver in almost the entire country. Coop claims to have occupancy in 90 percent of Norway, while Meny delivers in most major cities up to Trøndelag.
– In addition, we will soon open in Tromsø, where we will be Norway’s northernmost grocery store online, says Knut Nyløkken, head of online shopping at Meny.
None of the online stores will provide figures for weekly users, but all report a sharp increase in demand.
– We see a shift from younger online customers and families with children to all age groups, says Nyløkken.
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