The Consumer Council has moved one big stride forward in its price surveillance programme.
It inaugurated today (September 29) a new internet portal on online supermarket prices offering, in the first stage, a massive price database on a basket of over 400 daily staples.
The latest initiative is the second in slightly over a month launched by the Council in keeping up consumer awareness and vigilance on prices in the face of rising inflation.
On August 27, the Council unveiled its expanded weekly price survey on a basket of 40 commodities at various retail outlets in one district at a time.
In addition to the weekly price survey, consumers can now access at any time the Council's pricewatch website for comparison of online prices of four major supermarket chains.
These supermarket chains each operating its own online shopping service on the website are: Dai Chong Hong, Jusco, Park'n'Shop, Wellcome.
The price information data collected and assembled on the Council's pricewatch portal will be updated daily.
Prices of over 400 items are tabulated on display under each of the four supermarket chains (where the items are available), providing convenient and easy price comparison of shoppers.
The new portal covers 10 categories of commonly purchased food and household/personal care products comprising:
- Bread / cakes
- Dairy / yogurt products
- Candies / biscuits / snacks
- Staple food
- Non-staple food / sauces
- Beverages
- Baby products & food
- Personal care products
- Paper / household cleaning / laundry products
- Liquors
With the aid of a search engine, consumers will be able to browse the website and easily locate the price information of the products or products in the same category of their choice.
The portal will also include a "shopping basket" feature to assist consumers in the calculation of the total costs of their intended purchase from these supermarket chains for comparison.
Thus consumers can find out, with a few simple clicks, automatically both the comparative costs of a basket of items of their intended purchase, as well as the availability of the items at these four supermarket chains.