Now You're Cooking! Tip - November 2007

November 2007

Maintaining a Price-Aisle List For NYC

The price-aisle list in NYC (“price.lst”) stores prices and aisle locations across multiple stores for each item you have in the list. This list is used for two purposes:

1. Prices are used to obtain the cost of a shopping list across multiple stores; and

2. Aisle locations for shopping list items are used to create NYC’s Shopping List By Aisle

Users maintain the price-aisle list by:

1. Editing the prices or aisles directly using Edit Prices and Edit Aisles toolbar buttons.

2. Importing a price list from a text file.

Maintaining Price Data

Many users ask if price lists exist by store such that they can be imported into NYC. That would be nice, but most grocery stores rely on impulse buying (e.g., buying unneeded items on sight with unadvertised special, or buying an expensive item strategically placed near a less expensive, advertised item), so generally the last thing they want is a smart consumer who uses software to compare the cost of their full shopping list across stores. Thus, the price list must be maintained by the user.

You can however, maintain the price list in a spreadsheet, then save the spreadsheet as a comma-delimited file and touch it up in the in the format like the "myprice.txt" example. You can then import your custom prices-aisles list from the text file into NYC using Tools... Data Management... Shopping tab... Import list.

Maintaining Aisle Designations

Unlike price lists, store layouts (what foods are on what aisles) are often available at your individual grocery store in hard copy. This could be a good start on an aisle list.

Many users simplify the aisle designation process by using generic aisle labels like "dairy", "produce", etc which tend to work for any store. With NYC v5.83, these choices are now in a droplist in the Edit Aisles window. Click on “dairy” in the droplist, then rapidly click grid cells for dairy items (cheese, milk, eggs) in the store. With these generic aisles, View Shopping List By Aisle gives you a shopping list with items organized by “dairy”, etc.

If you want to maintain a detailed aisle list in a spreadsheet, you can save it as a comma-delimited file in the format like the "myprice.txt" example, you can import your custom prices-aisles list into NYC using Tools... Data Management... Shopping tab... Import list from the text file.

For more details on importing price and aisle data from a text file, see: Price/aisle data shortcuts (September 2000 Tip)

There are no downloadable price or aisle lists by store for NYC import that we know of. You might explore this question with other members of the NYC-MM Email Group .

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