Why Wait for a Sale?

For most of my adult life, I’ve been a penny-pincher and can tell you all the reasons why I wait for a sale. I love getting a good deal and I rarely pay full price for anything. With that being said, sometimes that means waiting a little while before making a purchase. Thankfully my husband and children have learned that good things come to those who wait!

This is a partnered post with Walmart and they paid for all the products mentioned within this post.

But as we all know, waiting is hard. Telling a five year old to wait just five minutes can prove to be very challenging. (Parents with a five year old…can I get an amen?)

This past Saturday, I made duplicate purchases at Walmart.com and Diapers.com on a few baby related items. You may be wondering why in the world would I make a duplicate purchase? It’s a relevant question and in full transparency, it’s because Walmart reached out to me to put their everyday low prices to the test. I was given a list of products (with the exact UPC I was to purchase) and my mission was to purchase the exact same items online and see what the total cost was for both stores.

The results surprised me and it made me realize just how differently stores mark up the items they sell.

Please click on the picture for a larger view of the receipts side by side. I have blacked out my personal information.

As you can see from the side by side receipts above, Walmart.com was considerably cheaper than Diapers.com on the exact same items.

While I was searching around both sites making my purchases, there were some differences in the shopping experience among these two retailers. While I was looking for the stroller to add to my cart, Diapers.com had 178 search results on lightweight strollers while Walmart.com only had 61. If I had been shopping around for a stroller with no particular one in mind, I would have appreciated that Diapers.com had a bigger selection than Walmart.com. As far as the pricing on the stroller, Walmart.com was cheaper but by less than a $1.

The Baby Einstein Caterpillar & Friends Play Gym is over $17 cheaper at Walmart.com than at Diapers.com. Both retailers let you search “Play Gyms” by brand, so finding the right product to add to my cart was easy on both sites. This particular play gym is regularly priced at $59.99 at Diapers.com but is marked as a “SALE” price at $53.99.

As with the play gym, the Regalo 4-in-1 Extra Large Metal Playard was $16 cheaper at Walmart.com than at Diapers.com. Diapers.com did have a larger play yard selection, but not by much. Walmart.com offered 124 search results, while Diapers.com offered 138 search results. However, Diapers.com did have a search option for the Regalo brand, while Walmart.com did not.

The shopping experiences at both retailers was easy. The websites were easy to navigate, the pricing was easily visible, the search option on both sites was front and center, but as with most consumers, it simply comes down to price. And Walmart.com clearly beat Diapers.com by a landslide.

Diapers.com was running a “special” promotion on this particular stroller and with purchase consumers receive a “free” Mommy Hook valued at $7.99. While I appreciate getting something free, we all know items are rarely free. If you had only purchased the stroller at Diapers.com, it would have been a good deal. But as you can see from the above illustrations, Diapers.com is considerably over-priced on the other items compared to the pricing at Walmart.com.

All in all, my order at Walmart.com was $32.71 cheaper than my order at Diapers.com. Both retailers offered free home shipping: at Walmart with orders of $45+ and at Diapers.com at orders of $35+.

Although I don’t have any “babies” anymore, I’m so excited about these purchases. As of right now, there are four mommies in my church that are expecting and with the recent remodel of our church nursery, some of these items will come in handy there as well. And even my five year old still likes being carted around in a stroller and I don’t blame him. If I could get someone to push me around, I probably would.

You can get a better view of the individual receipts by clicking on the thumbnails below. Again, my personal information has been blacked out but nothing else has been changed.

To me it makes complete sense to make my purchases at Walmart.com. Even with Diapers.com one competitively priced item, they were still higher than Walmart.com. So really, why wait for a sale when you don’t have to? You can see a full list of baby products available at Walmart.com.

Where do you make the majority of your online baby purchases?