We have reviewed The Grocery Run, Supermarket Deals and Door Buster and their offerings leave a  price sensitive shopper wanting a little more value. Occasionally, they have a super special worth buying but there are too many barriers to seal the deal. I wouldn't buy from these sites before considering; price, brand, maximum limits and delivery costs. So how does the conventional Woolworths online supermarket compare?

The first point of difference between the other online deals sites and Woolworths Online is that Woolworths doesn't deliver to all areas. However, if you are lucky enough to live in a serviced area the maximum delivery price of $13 is very comparable and is reduced the more you spend in any one transaction. At the time of writing this Woolworths is expanding their online supermarket concept into the mobile phone space, and suggest that they could service up to 90% of the Australian market.

The second point of difference is the variety of product available at Woolworths online. If you like your brands you can buy these everyday at the normal online shelf prices or better still the specials available in the weekly catalogues are also available to the online shopper. And yes that includes the half price specials.

Making the weekly specials available online gives Woolworths Online the third point of difference  over other deals sites because these specials are not simply overruns or near expiry products, but are genuine product promotions and everyday items. This is great for people who create a price book at myPrice.com.au and understand the weekly price cycles

The forth point of difference in this comparison is the ability to maximise your purchase quantity, which is great if you like to buy in bulk and make fantastic savings on each special. I have recently found that the Grocery Run has small limits on product quantity which greatly reduces your ability to make any real savings. Woolworths however allows you to order up to a maximum of 36 for each product which should satisfy most bulk purchases.

The final point of difference is that Woolworths have been in the food handling business for a long time and are likely to be in this space for a long time to come. Additionally, with a network of stores across Australia, returning damaged or expired items is easier than what the other grocery deals sites offer.

With Woolworths recently taking the next logical step with the Woolworths App and allowing customers to place orders directly from their smartphones there is light in the dim online supermarket tunnel, more competition is needed in this space so Coles, you're next cab off the rank, but let's not forget the IGA's and Foodworks in this market as they have the capacity to offer smaller and more regional communities their fair share of the online grocery shopping pie.

As money has tightened in the last few years post GFC, we can find ourselves paying a little more attention to the prices in the Coles and Woolworths catalogues. Saving a few cents here and there has hopefully left a few more dollars in your wallet this year and I think you'll be needing it because prices don't look that great on the big ticket Christmas food items.

Lets take a look at a few price differences from last year.

Have you wondered what those dates on your food really mean? Here we look at the meanings behind the dates so that you can make informed decisions. Remember that not all food past it's package date is bad for you, so read on to discover what is fine, and what should be avoided.

When you enter the DoorBuster.com.au website it clearly has distanced itself from Woolworths and that’s the way they intended. It is a bare bones site and functions very similar to other deals sites around like the grocery run and supermarket deals. However, I was a little surprised at the lack of discounted groceries on the site, but can see that there is a clear case of dipping ones toes in many market segments to see what works. So lets have a look at some of the Door Buster specials.