Use the pulldown menus to visit other Food Central sections:
Recipes ---------- Today Recipe Swap	Resources ---------- Additives Alcohol Beer Beverages Coffee Dairy Fat Fruit Grains Herbs Italian Meat Organic Seafood Snacks Southern Sweets Tea Veggies Vitamins	Restaurants ---------- Atlanta Baltimore Boston Chicago Dallas Denver Detroit Fort Worth Houston Las Vegas Los Angeles Miami Minneapolis New Orleans NYC Orlando Philly Phoenix Pittsburgh Salt Lake San Antonio San Diego San Fran Seattle St. Louis Wash, D.C. ---------- Amsterdam Athens Bangkok Beijing Berlin Brussels Cairo Copenhagen Dublin Florence Frankfurt Hong Kong London Madrid Mex City Montreal Moscow Munich Nairobi Paris Prague Rio Rome Singapore St. Pburg. Sydney Tokyo Toronto Vienna Zurich

Priceline.com's WebHouse Club offers shoppers a chance to name their own grocery prices

February 4, 2000
Web posted at: 5:34 p.m. EDT (1734 GMT)

(CNN) -- According to Jupiter Communications, $230 million in groceries were sold online last year -- a number which is expected to skyrocket to $7.5 billion. But as this trend grows, online grocery shoppers have to choose which they value more -- convenience or lower prices.

Grocery shopping is convenient on sites like Webvan and Peapod, but shoppers don't necessarily get a better price deal than what they would find in their local store.

On the other hand, Priceline.com's WebHouse Club offers shoppers a chance to name their own grocery prices, but the company doesn't deliver.

Teresa Kominkiewicz, a mother in New Jersey, saids shopping at Priceline.com has cut her bills by a third.

"Normally I spend about $180 once a week going grocery shopping...I know looking at my checklist that I paid Priceline about $110, $120," Kominkiewicz said.

The process is simple: shoppers submit a price for grocery product and if Priceline accepts it, their credit card is automatically billed.

After making all their selections online, Priceline customers have to go to the nearest participating grocery story to pick up their purchases.

There is no membership fee but shoppers will charged $3-a-month if they continue to use the service for more than three months.

But while shopping Priceline may save money, shoppers do have the added burden of basically shopping twice.

"The first shopping experience involves going to Priceline.com, logging on, wading through the screens, sifting through the menus and clicking on a series of buttons and double and triple checking those entries," says Consumer Reports Senior Editor Tod Marks. "Second time, you go to the store. You have to then cruise the aisles, not only looking for the specific brands, but also specific sizes."

Marks also points out that if a shopper is brand loyal, the WebHouse Club may not be a good match. Shoppers have to name at least two brands. They more brands named, the more likely they are to have success getting that particularly item.

Consumer Reports recommends using Priceline.com for big ticket items such as diapers and meat products, which rarely go on sale.