Some may have noticed recent publicity about a supermarket price war over nappies. The bottom line is they are discounting the price of disposables to lure mums down their isles so while they are buying up large on the discounted product they are also filling their shopping carts with the everyday priced goodies (the same ruse they use with discounted milk).
A quick search of prices does indeed show there is some hot competition in the nappy department. The best price we could find for a standard line product (a basic nappy for an infant) was from one of the major supermarkets. It was on special at a unit price of 33 cents compared to 45 cents from other outlets for the same item.
There is a remarkable range of products and pack sizes so young mums and dads could be forgiven for finding the task of a meaningful price comparison a little difficult. As a general rule we found buying in bulk was significantly cheaper. For example, in one case buying the 160 pack instead of 108 reduced the unit price by about 25%. Bulk buying does not always result in savings so one does need to have their calculator handy, but in this case the bulk buying made sense – and you never know when you will have a run on nappies(!) so having some spares may come in handy.
We also found a remarkable range in styles and prices. The designer nappies with high street brands (like Versace – just kidding) were typically around a dollar per unit.
As a general guide, we found the best value when buying nappies was bulk packets of house branded products at around 30 cents. – Oily Rag Ed’