Where to buy groceries in Bangkok: wet market, supermarket, 7-Eleven or an app?

Bangkok gives you five genuinely different ways to buy the same tomato, and they are not ranked — they are specialised. The wet market, the hypermarket, the supermarket, the convenience store and the delivery app each win decisively at something and lose badly at something else, and the mistake most new arrivals make is picking one and using it for everything. There is also a housekeeping problem specific to this topic: several of the chain names in circulation no longer exist. If your advice mentions Tesco Lotus, Central Food Hall or FamilyMart, it is describing a Bangkok that has not existed for years.

First, the names — because half of them changed

Thai food retail has been through a decade of consolidation, and the wreckage in old guides is substantial. Tesco Lotus is now Lotus’s: CP Group won the business in 2020 and rebranding began in February 2021, with the chain now sitting under CP Axtra, which also owns Makro. Central Food Hall is now Tops Food Hall — Central Retail folded its food business under a single Tops brand in October 2022, which also retired “Tops Market” as a standalone name and added the Tops Fine Food and Tops CLUB formats. FamilyMart has left Thailand entirely: the franchise ended and its roughly 200 stores were converted to Tops Daily from August 2023, after three decades in the country. Big C has been owned by Berli Jucker, part of the TCC Group, since it bought Casino Group’s controlling stake in February 2016, and its old “Big C Market” format has been converted into the wholesale-facing Depot. And Rimping, which comes up constantly in expat conversation, has nine branches and every one of them is in Chiang Mai — there is no Bangkok option.

What survives, and is worth knowing by what it does: Lotus’s and Big C for the big weekly shop; Tops in its several formats for a good mid-market supermarket; Villa Market and Gourmet Market (in The Mall Group’s properties, including Siam Paragon, Emporium, EmQuartier and EmSphere) for imported and specialist goods; Foodland, founded in 1972 and running 22 branches, several of them open around the clock and each with its Took Lae Dee diner attached; Makro for cash-and-carry volumes; MaxValu, Aeon’s Japanese-leaning chain with around 30 branches in Bangkok and its vicinity; and Golden Place, established under royal patronage, which is where to go for royal-project produce and Doi Kham goods rather than for a cheap basket.

What a wet market is actually for

The genuine case for a wet market is fresh: produce, herbs, chillies, seafood and meat, generally cheaper than a supermarket and markedly so in volume and in season. We are not going to attach a percentage to that gap, because no reliable published comparison exists — the direction is well established, the magnitude is folklore. Three markets are worth knowing by name. Or Tor Kor, opened in 1974 and run by the state-enterprise Marketing Organization for Farmers under the Ministry of Agriculture, sits on Kamphaeng Phet Road opposite Chatuchak and is the premium one — immaculate fruit, seafood, pre-cut meat and curry pastes, and genuinely easy to reach at about a minute’s walk from Exit 3 of MRT Kamphaeng Phet. CNN Travel ranked it fourth in a world’s-best fresh markets list back in 2017, which tells you the calibre even if the list is now old. Khlong Toei is the opposite proposition: Bangkok’s largest fresh and wholesale market, cheapest and most chaotic, liveliest between about six and nine in the morning, and roughly a fifteen-minute walk from MRT Khlong Toei rather than at the station door. Bang Kapi, at the end of Lat Phrao Road opposite The Mall, is the everyday neighbourhood version, and the Yellow Line’s arrival in 2023 finally put it four minutes from a station.

Now the etiquette, because it runs opposite to what visitors expect: you do not haggle for food. Prices for produce, meat and seafood are quoted and paid as stated. Bargaining is culturally normal in an entirely different context — souvenirs, handicrafts, tourist-market goods — and trying it on a vegetable seller reads as odd rather than shrewd. Relatedly, at ordinary neighbourhood markets foreigners and Thais generally pay the same for groceries; the dual pricing that gets discussed at length is a phenomenon of official tourist attractions, not the stall on your corner. Practical constraints to plan around: markets run early rather than late, there is no English signage, and payment is cash or PromptPay QR — not card.

Why the imported aisle costs what it does

If you want Western groceries, Villa Market, Gourmet Market, Tops Food Hall and Foodland are where they are, and the prices are not a retailer’s whim but the tax structure. Thai import tariffs run from zero to 80% depending on product, agricultural goods sit well above the average, and many processed foods fall in the 30–50% band — then 7% VAT is applied to the value including the duty and the shipping. That stacking is why a familiar jar can land at two or three times the price you left at home. Note that the 7% VAT is itself a long-running temporary reduction from a statutory 10%, most recently extended by cabinet to 30 September 2026.

Two changes worth knowing. Wine went sharply the other way: from 23 February 2024 Thailand cut the wine import tariff from 60% to zero and reduced wine excise, a change estimated to bring retail wine prices down substantially — so wine is one of the few imported categories where old price expectations are now pessimistic. Going the less welcome direction, from 1 January 2026 Thailand abolished the low-value exemption on imported parcels, so ordering specialist food from abroad now attracts 7% VAT plus any applicable duty on everything, with no small-order free pass.

Convenience, loyalty and paying for it

7-Eleven is the most visible retailer in the country — CP All reported 15,945 stores in Thailand as of 31 December 2025, having opened 700 that year — and its proposition is honestly stated as proximity and hours, not price. It is where you go at eleven at night for one thing, not where you do a shop. Two practical notes: card payment commonly carries a minimum of around 200 baht, and smaller or suburban branches may be cash-only. Alongside it sit Tops Daily (much of it converted FamilyMart estate), Mini Big C and CJ More.

On loyalty, the one genuinely worth signing up for as a foreigner is Central’s The 1, which covers Tops, Tops Daily and Tops Food Hall, has more than 23 million members and relaunched with a four-tier structure in April 2026 — and, crucially, its sign-up accepts a passport number in place of a Thai national ID for expats and tourists. Lotus’s runs My Lotus’s; Big C runs Big Point, renamed from Big Card in December 2021. Makro nominally requires members to be Thai residents aged 18 or over, though enforcement is widely reported as relaxed — we would not promise you either outcome at the door.

Payment is the split that catches people. Supermarkets and malls broadly take Visa, Mastercard and UnionPay including contactless; wet markets are overwhelmingly cash or QR. That QR is PromptPay, Thailand’s national instant-payment rail launched by the Bank of Thailand in 2016 and now handling tens of millions of transactions a day — and a foreigner generally cannot register a personal PromptPay without a Thai bank account and Thai-linked number. What has changed usefully is the cross-border side: Thai merchant QR codes can now be scanned by home-country apps from several linked markets, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, and since 30 October 2025 by Alipay, WeChat Pay and UnionPay. If your home app is not on that list, carry cash to the market.

Finally, groceries by app: Lotus’s, Big C PLUS, Tops Online, Makro PRO, GrabMart, LINE MAN MART and 7-Eleven’s own 7Delivery all operate and were all being actively updated in mid-2026. Tops Online carries a Tops Prime subscription at 99 baht a month for unlimited fast delivery. The realistic caution is language: 7-Eleven’s app and Lotus’s are dependably bilingual, but a 2026 guide for foreign users reports that even in English mode much of 7-Eleven’s product naming and the address flow remain in Thai — so treat “supports English” as a claim to test on a small first order rather than a promise. And do check what the plastic bag situation is where you shop: the widely cited 2020 bag ban was a voluntary agreement with major retailers rather than a statute, which is exactly why the supermarket makes you buy a bag and the market hands you three.

Quick answers

Is Tesco Lotus still around?

As Lotus’s, since February 2021. Central Food Hall is now Tops Food Hall; FamilyMart left in 2023.

Are markets cheaper?

For fresh food, generally yes — but cash or QR only, early hours, no English signage.

Should I haggle?

Not for food. Bargaining belongs at souvenir and handicraft stalls.

Why is imported food pricey?

Duty of up to 80% by product, then 7% VAT charged on top of the duty. Wine is the exception since 2024.

Can I get a loyalty card?

Yes — The 1 accepts a passport number for expats and tourists.