You must understand these are loss leaders for the supermarkets. These articles are meant to bring you in and you doing the whole shopping there, where they more then recoup money on other articles you buy, many of which are higher priced than in other stores. (e.g. la Sirena opened in Higuey with at-cost ricing for many food articles, but other important food articles were substantially higher than in Iberia). In SD there are many stores/chains and many specials. But you cannot be chasing specials in SD. You would lose more gas money sitting in traffic jams jogging among La Sirena, Plaza Lama, Bravo, Ole, La Cadena, Jumbo etc. unless you would be buying truckloads (or at least caseloads) of articles at those discounted prices. And those that "jog" are like the people in the US who go across town driving 15 miles just to save 50 cents off an article with a coupon.
As was said by belmont, you have to do the whole basket comparison, and not just for "canned corn" but a specific 2-3 brands of canned corn. You cannot just pick articles. I tell you what. here in Higuey, while "specials" are not as deeply discounted as in SD (e.g. miercoles de vegetales, jueves rojos) we actually get more bang for money, because we CAN jog among the stores. Hopping from Iberia to Zaglul to Higueyano is not that far and most people are motorized (motorbikes, scooters, cars). So while potatoes are regularly at 23 pesos a pound, you can get it for 10 pesos on special in Iberia, and the same day you can hop over to Higueyano to get specials on meats. I am quite sure it's similar in Bavaro, Super Pola has specials, Nacional has specials, and when Iberia opens up, it will have specials. You will be able to combine hopping and jogging to take advantage of them in an easier manner than you would be able to do in Santo Domingo.
