Commissary to Roll Out Handy New Price Search Tool

Commissary to Roll Out Handy New Price Search Tool
Capt. Michelle Stone, Dietitian, Executive Wellness Program, Department of Preventive Medicine, William Beaumont Army Medical Center, demonstrates what to look for in nutrition labels to a commissary tour group at the Fort Bliss Commissary, Aug. 24. Photo by Marcy Sanchez / William Beaumont Army Medical Center Public Affairs Office

This article by Amy Bushatz originally appeared on Military.com, the premier resource for the military and veteran community.

Remember back when the commissary website used to list all the sale items at each stateside store and their exact prices? A super handy way to milk the most savings out of a commissary run, it was also the only way to easily tell when items were marked down.

The system did not use sale tags until 2011, so unless you happened to know the regular price off the top of your head, there was no way to tell at a glance in the store whether or not things were cheap. The list was the only tool.

But the section has been down since a DeCA site redesign last year. And now officials are getting ready to launch an even better one, according to a recent release.

Instead of just a super long, alphabetical list of items and prices, the new section will let customers look up the price of any item in any store, the release said.

That means the feature will also be available for OCONUS locations -- something the previous version didn't have.

It also means you'll be able to price check items before deciding if heading to your local commissary is, as they say, worth the trip. You could look up the price for ground beef while standing in front of the ground beef sale at your nearby civilian store, instead of just rolling the dice and hoping that one price is cheaper than the other.

Let's be honest: that's going to be a really handy tool.

As for when this will be available, officials didn't release a roll out date for that, instead saying "the next few months."

Other articles by Military.com:

Commissary 101: How to Shop at the Commissary

No More Baggers? Commissary Testing Bagger-Free Lanes

These New Commissary Brand Products Are Hitting Shelves