Excluding the hypermarkets, there are about five different supermarket chains in Taiwan. For the most part they all sell the exact same goods, the only difference being the quality of the fixtures and the atmosphere of the store.
At the low end are the two Taiwanese owned chains. They both are pretty chaotic inside. They are not so well organized, not very clean, have very narrow aisles and everything just feels low quality. Even the paper used to display the prices just seems like somebody typed something up in Word and printed it off onto colored paper. So in a word, these places are great. Who needs all that razzmatazz in a supermarket? The best part is that all this means that prices are considerably cheaper than the other supermarket chains.
The two in the next tier are Wellcome (from Hong Kong) and Matsusei (from Japan). The prices here are relatively higher but also they look and "feel" much better inside. Wellcome is the most prevalent chain in the country. As such the quality of their stores more depends on their locations. some are big and beautiful and some are tiny and cramped. What helps to make them the overall best supermarket in Taiwan is that most of it's locations are open 24 hours.
In true Japanese fashion, Mastsusei is more expensive than the others. The only reason I can give is that of the others their locations are generally more spread out and comfortable. Also they have gone to 24 hours as well. What sets them apart is that they have a variety of Japanese items that other places don't have.
A few years ago a new supermarket chain was introduced called Jason's Marketplace. It's a much more upscale supermarket than the others. It has more lavish layouts and many more import goods from America and Europe. If you want to get some high quality goods or get something you miss from back home and pay a lot for it, this is the place to go. I must admit that it's a pretty nice place, and one that I would shop at if I had the cash. I usually see foreigner families there shopping and let's just say they are doing pretty well if they are buying that much food there.
Jason's is actually owned by the same company that owns Wellcome. They used to keep this under wraps but now a few of them have "brought to you by Wellcome" on them or even have been completely re-branded as Wellcome Select, or Plus, or something like that. To maintain the air of high quality, they are exclusively located in shopping malls and department stores. Oh this does remind me that with the success of Jason's another high class supermarket chain opened up Taiwan also from Hong Kong called City Super. It is by far the most luxurious looking of all the supermarkets here but the goods inside aren't as exclusive, so on food choice alone not much separates it from Wellcome or Matsusei, however of course it charges much more than those two. And like Jason's, it is only located inside of department stores, actually only in one specific chain of department store.
Before i go, I must ask, did you notice? That even though Wellcome is a store from Hong Kong opened by a company owned and operated by westerners, that they spelled the name wrong? It's funny because there are foreigners who have been here for years and never noticed. I'm happy to say that I noticed on my second day of being here....after somebody pointed it out to me.
