Cash and carry stores: can buying in bulk cut your shopping bills?

theguardian.com:

Cash and carry firms such as Costco promise lower prices and are attracting a growing army of devotees, some of whom say you can save hundreds of pounds on your shopping.

So is it time to fill up your car boot with multipacks to beat the cost of living crisis? Are these savings real? Will they let you through the doors?

The Guardian decided to go shopping at two of the best-known cash and carry wholesalers: Costco and Booker. It is fair to say we found plenty of bargains: Andrex toilet paper 30% cheaper than Tesco; bottles of Heineken beer priced 20% less than Asda and Morrisons; a giant Samsung TV for almost half the price charged by John Lewis.

We began our price survey with a number of misgivings. Do you really want to spend your weekend in a sprawling shed cramming 48 packs of kitchen roll into the car, just to save a few pounds?

However, we came away thinking that maybe it might just be worthwhile, so long as (a) you have a car; (b) you have somewhere to store a three-month supply of bog roll; and © you have the money to pay upfront.

There is also the small question of whether you will be allowed to join the club.

Yes, prices were almost always lower. But this was just a snapshot of prices on any one given day, and it comes with a number of caveats.

First, we could only compare branded goods. For example, we found Head & Shoulders was significantly cheaper at the warehouses compared with the high street supermarkets. But if you really want to save on anti-dandruff shampoo, you would buy the non-branded option, such as Cien at Lidl, for less than half the price.

Second, the Head & Shoulders product might be 20% cheaper but you could not just buy one – you had to buy a minimum of six bottles. So you are poorer now, to save