Do You Really Save Money or Spend More in Big Bazaar Offers

Its more than 5 years, I am shopping groceries & many other items from Big Bazaar. You can find many tempting offers from Big Bazar on time to time during the whole year. One of their biggest offer comes during republic day & that is known as the Big Bazaar Maha Bachat offer. You can take the advantage of this offer from 23rd January to 27th January.

But do you really save money or spend more during the offers?

Every time, I return from Big Bazaar shopping, I regret myself & promise not to buy anything in future from Big Bazaar.

But I don’t keep this promise for long & I go for Big Bazaar shopping again. First reason is they lure people with their offers through full page advertisement in Indian news paper & another reason is its convenient to shop everything from one place.

But, in spite of shopping again & again from Big Bazaar, I really don’t like to go there, particularly when they bring the offers like ‘Maha Bachat’ during Republic Day.

Why don’t I like Big Bazaar offers?

I really want to forget my past experiences in Big Bazaar shopping & wanted to analyze my shopping experience once again during the current Maha Bachat offer.

I want to check whether I can really save some money?

I want to share my real experience during this shopping & looking for your opinions & experiences about this.

So first thing I did is, prepared my list for the items which I wanted to purchase from Big Bazaar.

I hate to prepare the list but its really one of the best thing I have learnt particularly for shopping in Big Bazaar. If you don’t prepare this, you will really buy so many unwanted items from Big bazaar without realizing this.

So here is my experience.

1. Experience on discounts

After reaching there in Big Bazar, I found that more than 70% of the products in my list has no discount. And even in remaining 30%, there was no attractive discounts.

If I would purchase only those items, which were in my list, I would have saved only Rs. 100 from a  bill of Rs. 5000/-.

It was really shocking as I can get that much discounts even from the grocery shop or super market in my area, if I would purchase all these items.

So what ‘Maha Bachat’ or ‘Sabse Saste 5 Din’ they are talking about?

Here is my conclusion on discounts-

• The big discounts were only on low popular brands, unbranded items or items without any label (like vegetables & fruits, spices, cereals & pulses) etc. The reality is that the price of many of these items are actual price with inflated price on the labels.
• Many of the branded items either has no discount or these discounts are directly from the company which you can find even in your local grocery shops or general & medical stores.
• You can get better deals even from some of the other wholesaler shops on many of the products. You can find these shops in every area.
• And yes, you may find real good discounts on many of the products in Big Bazaar but that is not your need, you create the need.

2. Experience on inconvenience

If you had ever visited the big Bazaar during such offers, you better know what inconvenience, I am talking about. You need to spend at least 1 hour in the queue to enter inside.

There is more inconvenience inside the Big Bazaar, as it’s over crowded. Its very difficult to move your trolley. You spend at least double your time then normal shopping in the same place.

And in the last, you will find inconvenience in the billing counter. Yesterday, I had to wait around 1 hour in the queue for my turn.

3. Experience on expenses

Until you buy lots of things from Big Bazaar, you have to go there either by your 4 wheeler or by rickshaw. And I assume, its not very near to your home.

So you have to spend good amount, either you go by rickshaw or by your 4 wheeler (including parking charges).

There comes another expense, if you don’t carry your plastic bags. They charge Rs. 6 for each bag. If you think to save money by taking only 1 carry bag, then the shopping bag will become so much heavy & you can’t walk with this even for 10 feet distance.

So, its always better to carry good quality bags with you & park your vehicle near the Big bazaar gate.

4. Experience on unwanted items

After reaching home, I matched my bill with my list that I prepared for shopping. I found -

• there are around 30% items which were not in my list & that cost me around Rs. 1500/-.
• at least Rs. 250/- were spent on useless items that was really not needed.
• after checking the bill thoroughly, I realized, I saved just Rs. 374/- out of my Rs. 4986/- bill & if you deduct all the expenses of petrol, car parking, carry bags & the absolutely unwanted item of Rs. 250/-, I saved nothing.

5. Experience on Bill

Although, there was no mistake in my bill but I observed many people on the customer support desk, complaining about the problem in their bills

Although its rare, but you can find 3 types of problems in your bill -

1. One of the item is missing but it was charged in the bill.
2. Discount that was mentioned in Big Bazaar was not applied in the bill.
3. One of the item you did not purchase came in your shopping bag & even charged in your bill.

Conclusion

Here are some of the tips that you can follow if you are planning to go for shopping at Big Bazaar.

1. Prepare a list of necessary items & strictly stick on that.
2. Carry some big sized bags with you.
3. Always check expiry dates. You won’t find any expiry item there but most of the items on sale will be near to expiry. Its better to buy fresh items, close to manufacturing date.
4. Check your bill on the counter itself for any problem. Its difficult to come back again.
5. Try to shop online on Bigbazaar.com site if you are from Mumbai & if you are not from Mumbai, you can purchase from FutureBazaar.com. Neither you pay any expenses nor you feel any inconvenience & the most important, you will buy, only what you need. And yes, you can pay them at the time of delivery.

Its my opinion as per my experience. You may have different opinion. Can you share this with me & other people.