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Comment by pessimizer | Hacker News Reader

Walmart isn't a budget grocery store, though. Its prices are higher than actual grocery stores (like Safeway.) Also, everyone is WAY cheaper than Instacart.

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>Walmart isn't a budget grocery store,

The answer to this is complex, it has any number of products that are cheaper than products of similar quality from any other store. Places like Safeway/Aldi typically beat on price on very generic items that may or may not have similar quality.

The biggest thing to watch for at Walmart is price discrimination dependent on location. Back in the days I used to shop with them (read made less money) picking a store in a poorer neighborhood could save $10 to $30 dollars on the same car of items.

I found Lowes (hardware) to be one of the worst about this. I lived in an area with 4 Lowes, and never shopped at my local one because of how much more expensive everything was, and never clearance. I'm not talking a couple dollars, in some cases 4x the price of one just 15 minutes away.

In the days before places started requiring ID for returns an acquaintance of mine would pick up rifle scopes at one Walmart and return them at another Walmart on a route he took. Only once every few weeks to give employees time to rotate out. He could pay for a few days of gas with that arbitrage.

Not in the areas of California I frequent. Walmart is usually the cheapest around here; heck, even Target beats Safeway on some items. On the other hand, Walmart is also usually the worst at stock rotation.

Walmart is certainly the cheapest in some rather remote cities, like Fargo, ND.

This is the opposite of my experience. Safeway is usually the most expensive, more than the Kroger/Albertsons chains.

The only place that competed with Walmart on price for me was WinCo.

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