Bunnings remains Australia’s most trusted brand, while distrust is surging for online retail giants such as Temu and Shein.
Roy Morgan’s latest quarterly update on brands trust showed the homewares and hardware giant had retained the top spot for the eighth consecutive time, a run stretching back to late 2023.
The top four remain as they have for the past four quarters, with Bunnings followed by Aldi, Kmart, and Apple.
Bunnings remains Australia’s most trusted brand. (Supplied)
Some of the big movers in the most trusted names were the banks, with Commonwealth Bank moving up to replace Toyota in fifth place.
Westpac (14th), NAB (19th), ING (20th) and Bendigo (15th) were also climbers, while the banking industry as a whole was named Australia’s eighth-most trusted industry – a huge 10-spot rise in the past 12 months.
“This is by far the biggest increase of any industry, with the second-best performance by the closely related Insurance Industry, up three rankings to 13th overall,” Roy Morgan chief executive Michele Levine said.
Commonwealth Bank was among the most trusted brands. (Eamon Gallagher)
In Roy Morgan’s “most distrusted” rankings, Woolworths and Coles retained the top two spots for the fourth consecutive quarter.
But online retailers could be swiftly catching up, with Temu rising to the fifth-most distrusted brand for the quarter.
Amazon was 10th and Shein 11th.
Coles and Woolworths are not considered trustworthy, according to the polling. (Getty)
“Since Roy Morgan began measuring Temu in mid-2023, the brand has been on a steady downward trajectory that shows no signs of ending anytime soon – and is now Australia’s fifth most distrusted brand overall in the 12 months to September 2025,” Levine said.
“In fact, in the single month of September – Temu was the most distrusted brand of all.”
Other distrusted brands included Tesla (7th), McDonalds (16th), Jetstar (18th), Shell (19th), Qantas (6th), Telstra (8th), News Corp (12th), Rio Tinto (17th), and BP (20th).
People outside a garment workshop where piles of Shein packages wait to be shipped in Guangzhou, China, in February this year. (NYT)
Distrust of online retailers like Temu are rising. (Adobe Stock)
Out of the online retail sector, only eBay retains a trustworthy rating, with customers turning on the likes of Amazon, AliExpress, and Kogan, as well as Temu and Shein.
The pollster noted this was despite increasing usage, highlighting unethical attitudes and profit-driven behaviour as driving distrust.
“As more Australians trial the platform, distrust is accelerating rather than stabilising, a sign real-world experience is feeding the decline,” Levine said.
“The biggest drivers of Temu’s distrust are poor quality, a lack of ethics, dishonesty, a lack of data privacy, and overall unreliability. Poor quality and low standards are accelerating fastest, but every negative driver is reinforcing the overall surge in distrust.”