Many French people prefer the drive to do their shopping. An undeniable time saving, but is it really advantageous? The scale tends to tip from one brand to another, according to UFC-Que Choisir experts. Here is the one that is the most interesting in drive.
To make their daily lives easier and lighten their minds a little, more and more families are turning to the drive-thru solution to do their food shopping. Last year alone, in April, 39% of French households collected their purchases directly from the drive point of their supermarket, indicates a NielsenIQ study, in partnership with the Federation of e-commerce and retail sales. distance (FEVAD). In terms of figures, the drive market represented a whopping 12 billion euros in 2023, an increase of 12% in one year. It must be said that for households, the drive-thru option is a quick and very practical solution. All you have to do is connect to your hypermarket’s website, add all the food and non-food products you need to your fictitious basket, select the slot that suits you to collect your shopping, then pay online in a few seconds. A valuable time saver for many, but what about the financial side?
If you pay attention to prices, you have probably already noticed that prices are not always the same on food e-commerce sites compared to those in stores. So, is it more expensive or not to do your shopping via the drive-thru? UFC Que Choisir experts conducted the survey over several weeks, in total, in 1,304 stores of the main brands, and the least we can say is that the difference is not as significant as one might think so, except at a distributor widely distributed in the territory with a difference of 17% more in store! Overall, the average price difference is between -1% and 1%. Which means that shopping online is not necessarily more expensive than in store and vice versa. In detail, according to observations from UFC Que Choisir, the average price in store compared to the drive is:
- + 1% at Monoprix
- + 0.8% at Auchan
- + 0.3% at Carrefour
- the same at E.Leclerc
On the other hand, if all the small savings count for you, know that you can see slightly lower prices in store at Intermarché (- 0.3%) and in Système U stores (- 0.7%). And among the main distributors, there is a separate case to remember: that of Casino which charges much higher prices, around 17% in store compared to the drive-thru, noted the experts at UFC Que Choisir. The group operates what is called a differentiated pricing policy. So pay attention the next time you go shopping!