Example shopping list

Today we created six typical shopping lists for a family of two adults and one teenager:

• Three lists comparing Coop with Kaufland over three different shopping-periods (weekly, fortnightly and monthly).
• Three lists comparing Lidl CH with Lidl DE over the same periods as above.

The idea is to take a map of the border region in Canton Aargau and draw concentric circles centred on each German shopping location. Each circle represents a certain distance (e.g. 5km, 10km, 15km). With this map we want to illustrate the value of cross-border shopping versus the distance of the consumer's residence from the German border. Obviously distance is inversely proportional to savings. The two prime factors are distance and transport costs. To take the extremes:

•  If you live right beside the border, it's well-worthwhile 
•  If you live 200km away, you just won't bother.  

In the case of Canton Aargau we will try to illustrate the cut off point, where cross-border shopping is no longer worthwhile. Two more important factors are:

• How often is the consumer prepared to make the trip to Germany
• How much he is willing to spend on each visit. 
• For instance, a person with  a big freezer will be happy to buy a lot more and therefore does not have to make the trip so often. 

Finally another two factors which must be considered are:

• Will the consumer respect the customs allowances or will he chance exceeding the legal limits in pursuit of greater savings.
• The number of people travelling together to maximise the benefit of the customs allowance.

Basic map example

The major problem we had to take in to consideration was the size amount of food we decided on.

Another problem was that the food in CH/DE didn't necessarily come in same shapes and sizes. 

We decided to use the lists from before the holidays and use our own shopping experience to get a value that all agreed on (e.g. 500g of pasta per week).

To solve the other problem we just entered the average price of the two products so that one isn't righter than the other.

Next week we are planing on creating six maps and finding a place to put them in our final product.