Digital vs. in-store grocery shopping: What you need to know about price differences

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A local mother thought she'd found a convenient and cost-cutting solution for her family, but she was shocked when she analyzed her bill.

When you shop for groceries online you probably know that you will pay a delivery fee and maybe even an additional service fee, plus a tip.

But the Troubleshooters found at certain big chains, you're paying extra in another way.

Like many, Jessie Klink is juggling kids, work, and more. So when it comes to grocery shopping, she tries to make it as easy as possible.

She chose to use Wegmans' curbside pickup, which provides the convenience of shopping online. But instead of paying to have groceries delivered to your home, you drive to the store and a worker puts the bags in your car.

Klink enjoyed the system until she noticed a big price discrepancy on one of her regular items: prepared pulled pork.

She paid $34.58 on the app. In the store, the exact same item was $23 -- $9 less.

"That was the item that opened my eyes to this whole situation," she said.

It opened our eyes, too. So we went shopping to compare prices on a variety of items online and in-store at Wegmans, Whole Foods, Walmart, Aldi, Giant and Acme.

We loaded our carts with items that included staples like, eggs, milk, and bread.

And here's what we found.

If you shop at Walmart, Giant, Acme and Whole Foods you'll pay the same online and in-store.

But at Aldi, be prepared to pay more for some items you buy online.

For example, we found (on March 30) a gallon of whole milk for $4.53 in-store, but it was $4.99 online, a 46-cent upcharge.

A 10 oz. bag of chips in-store is 40 cents more online: $1.95 as opposed to $2.35 online.

We found a can of soup and ketchup were 20 cents more.

At Wegmans, where Klink found that $9 difference on pulled pork, we found an upcharge on other items.

For example, a gallon of store brand whole milk in-store (on March 30) will run you $4.53. But online, it's $5.29 -- a difference of 76 cents.

A dozen eggs were about 20 cents more. And you'll pay 40 cents more for a loaf of bread: $2.49 in-store, but $2.89 online.

"This seemed a little bit sneaky to me that they were, you know, increasing the prices and not consistently," said Klink.

So now she is going old-school at Wegmans.

"I get up Sunday mornings and I brave through all the people and I grocery shop in person to save money," said Klink.

Both Wegmans and Aldi do disclose the price differences on their websites and on their apps, but a lot of shoppers, like Klink, miss the fine print.

Wegmans released this statement:

"We keep our prices consistently low, every day, so families can save on the items they use most. Our online prices remain about 15% above in-store prices, which includes our costs for shopping the order. Customers can learn more about online pricing on our website."

Aldi says, "There may be a slight increase on certain items sold online to cover the cost of personal shopping from order to order, but rest assured that ALDI will continue to offer consistently low prices."

The 6abc data journalism team crunched the numbers, and on average the online prices at Wegmans are 20% higher than the in-store prices. None of the price differences were as low as 15%. The smallest one was a 16% difference for bread.

When asked about this Wegmans offered the following statement:

"The difference between in-store and online price is not as simple as adding 15% to every item. Instacart uses a formula with rounding rules to determine the price increase on each item, so it does vary based on what's in the customer's basket, averaging around 15%. There's also a cap so the markup never exceeds $3."

Wegmans also sent a screenshot of the 32 oz. family pack of pulled pork at a price of $25.99. It stated: "it should be 81 cents per ounce online, versus 72 cents per ounce in-store."

The company also clarified its prices for the items we mentioned.

The prices as of May 3 for a gallon of store brand whole milk in-store is $4.21 and online is $4.89.

A dozen eggs were 40 cents more, and a loaf of bread was 20 cents more -- in store it was $1.29 and online it's $1.49.