How much does your cold cost? We checked the prices at local drug and grocery stores.
Nowhere is safe.
The sniffing, the sneezing, the coughing — it has invaded our homes, our offices, our family gatherings and our routine outings.
Whether you’ve been among the afflicted or you’re just trying to guard yourself against the inevitable infection, you’ve likely made a recent visit to the Cold & Allergy aisle of your favorite retailer. Or you will soon.
If so, you might also add “sticker shock” to your list of ailments.
Since we’re at the peak of cold and flu season, we decided to price-check some basic items we all need when we’re in the throes of nasal-based misery. From cough syrups and decongestants to chicken soup and orange juice, we checked prices at the two major chain drug stores in the area (Walgreens and CVS), the two main box stores (Walmart and Target) and most major local grocery chains. (We also included one local independent pharmacy — a category that understandably has trouble competing with major chains price-wise, but make up for it with personal service.) We did not include stores that require a membership for shopping, such as Costco and Sam’s Club.
This comparison is similar to the grocery price check we did in October 2019.
We checked prices on 15 over-the-counter cold, flu and allergy products and six cold-related grocery products at 12 local stores.
As before, we checked only Raleigh locations of the stores we selected, and we noted regular prices, not sale prices. And we photographed each item on the shelf so that we’d have a record of the prices. As with the grocery story, we include the caveat that prices within a chain can fluctuate from store to store, depending on the neighborhood, and from town to town. All of the prices were checked between Jan. 8 and Jan. 13, 2020.
There are two major differences between this comparison and the grocery comparison: this time, we only checked name brand products, no generic brands (not every store has a generic version of the items we checked). And this time we didn’t check prices at stores like Whole Foods, Aldi and Lidl, since those stores tend to not carry as many of the name brand products.
Which stores have the best prices on cold and flu medicines?
In general, we found that Walmart and Target have the best deals on everything from Nyquil to Emergen-C. That was no surprise. (Dollar General is very competitive, but has a smaller selection).
But big box stores aside, should you head to the local pharmacy to buy your over-the-counter meds, or are you just as well off picking up those items while you’re already doing your grocery shopping?
According to our research, stick with the grocery store.
For nearly every product we could compare, a grocery store had a lower price than Walgreens or CVS. And among grocery stores, Wegmans and Carlie C’s often had the lowest prices and carried the most items on our list.
If you need to speak to a pharmacist about which over-the-counter meds to buy, you might still opt for Walgreens or CVS. But Target and Walmart, as well as many grocery stores — like Harris Teeter, Publix and the Raleigh Carlie C’s — have pharmacies and working pharmacists on duty.
Prices aside, we understand that convenience often rules all — especially when you’re sick.
Stacy Wimmer, a producer at ABC11, gave in to the lure of convenience when she was sick over Christmas.
“Target by far has the best prices,” Wimmer said. “But the day I felt the worst I used Amazon Prime (Now), because I had nothing! It was pricey, but worth the home delivery.”
Spend some time with our price database and see if you’re surprised by what you find. The database lets you compare products (or a list of products) across each store, or all products at a single store. In a few cases, we couldn’t compare exact sizes of products (for example, Walmart only carried a larger size of the Nyquil we checked, and CVS only carried a smaller size of the Robitussin we checked) but we included footnotes for those items.
And remember if you’re looking at store totals that not all stores carry every single item we checked.
This story was originally published January 15, 2020 at 12:45 PM.
