Former consumer watchdog boss Allan Fels dubbed the Coles legal battle “the case of the century”.<\/p>\n
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The ACCC has accused Woolworths of misleading customers by using fake discounts as part of its “Prices Dropped” marketing program. (ABC News: Billy Cooper)<\/p>\n
He thinks the Woolworths sequel could be just as captivating.<\/p>\n
“The ACCC is doubling down,” he said.<\/p>\n
“This is episode two of the series, ‘Bogus Business Discounts’.<\/p>\n
“There’s probably quite a few more episodes to come with non-supermarket businesses.”<\/p>\n
Mr Fels said there could also be widespread ramifications for discount pricing “to make sure discounts are genuine, not bogus”.<\/p>\n
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Professor Allan Fels says if the ACCC is unsuccessful, it will be a huge challenge to the regulator’s credibility. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)<\/p>\n
Just like Coles, Woolworths is defending the case arguing cost increases were driven by suppliers and the discounts were real not “illusory”.<\/p>\n
If the supermarket giant wins it will be vindication for its pricing tactics and could result in reputational blowback for the ACCc.<\/p>\n
However, a loss could result in a massive fine, serious harm to its reputation, and a sizeable payout to shoppers under a class-action lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Consumers ‘feeling the pinch’, welcome ACCC action<\/p>\n
Regular Woolworths shopper Stella Kelly, 26, said she was keen to see whether the ACCC could prove its case.<\/p>\n
“Everybody’s feeling the pinch,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It’s good to know that someone else is looking out for the everyday person.”<\/p>\n
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Woolworths shopper Stella Kelly says shoppers are feeling the pinch. (ABC News: Patrick Stone)<\/p>\n
Ms Kelly lives with her partner and dog in Melbourne’s north-east and says she is feeling the cost-of-living squeeze.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got a dual income, but between that and renting, car insurance and fuel, everything’s really, really high,” she said.<\/p>\n
Another Woolies shopper, Carol, lives alone and says she has cut back on groceries to deal with rising inflation.<\/p>\n
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Woolworths shopper Carol said she would be “furious” if the court found that the supermarket had misled customers. (ABC News: Patrick Stone)<\/p>\n
“I limit what I buy because of the cost,” she said.<\/p>\n
She said she would be “furious” if the court found Woolworths and Coles had misled customers with their discount pricing promotions.<\/p>\n
“It shouldn’t be happening.”<\/p>\n
Woolworths ‘diminished’ consumers’ ability ‘to make informed choices’<\/p>\n
During the case, the ACCC plans to heavily scrutinise the pricing of the Oreo Family Pack.<\/p>\n
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The ACCC alleges Woolworths planned the price spikes before the products were put on a “Prices Dropped” promotions. (ABC News: Billy Cooper)<\/p>\n
It’s one of 12 representative products chosen from a total of 266 that were on “Prices Dropped” promotions that the ACCC alleges misled shoppers.<\/p>\n
The consumer watchdog claims Woolworths prevented shoppers from making informed choices about essential purchases between September 2021 and May 2023.<\/p>\n
The Oreo Family Pack was sold at a regular price of $3.50 for 696 days until late November 2022. It then spiked to $5.00 for 22 days before Woolworths put it on a “Prices Dropped” price of $4.50.<\/p>\n
Shoppers were shown a ticket that said the price “was” $5.00 but was now $4.50.<\/p>\n
The ACCC argued that it was misleading because it was actually “29 per cent higher than the product’s previous regular price of $3.50”.<\/p>\n
It also said Woolworths had “planned” the brief price spike in November 2022 after a supplier’s request to increase the price.<\/p>\n
It did this even though it had already decided it would take the Oreos off “Prices Dropped” for only three weeks to sell it at the higher price before putting the product back onto “Prices Dropped.”<\/p>\n
Woolworths has rejected this claim as a “mischaracterisation”.<\/p>\n
The supermarket giant says the first price of $3.50 was a “pre-inflationary dropped price” and it had only agreed to increase the price after negotiations with its supplier.<\/p>\n
It said the previous regular price was $5, not $3.50.<\/p>\n
Here’s another example.<\/p>\n
Lucky Dog Bones were sold at $4.50 under the “Prices Dropped” promotion for more than a year.<\/p>\n
Woolworths then increased the price to $6.50 for 29 days before putting it back on the “Prices Dropped” promotion at $6.00 for several months.<\/p>\n
The pricing for Stayfree Ultra thin pads (10 pack) is more complicated.<\/p>\n
This product was sold at $4.50 or less for more than a year before Woolworths increased the price to $5.30.<\/p>\n
After a short period, it was moved to the “Prices Dropped” promotion and priced at $4.80, which was 30 cents higher than the previous year’s price.<\/p>\n
The ACCC alleged Woolworths planned the price spikes, which went for 45 days or less, before the products were put on a “Prices Dropped” promotion.<\/p>\n
Many shoppers wouldn’t have understood that the price was “at least 15 per cent higher than its previous regular price”, the ACCC argued.<\/p>\n
Tim Tams, Fab and Tiny Teddies will also be on the ACCC’s hit list.<\/p>\n
Were shoppers mislead?<\/p>\n
Woolworths is the largest player in the grocery sector with more than 1,100 supermarkets and Metro stores nationally.<\/p>\n
It posted a $1.4 billion net profit last financial year.<\/p>\n
Together, Coles and Woolworths dominate almost two-thirds of the market.<\/p>\n
The “Prices Dropped” promotion has been a regular fixture since 2015.<\/p>\n
The promotion features a distinctive red-and-white “Prices Dropped” shelf ticket, signalling a price reduction that would last for an extended period.<\/p>\n
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Consumer law expert Jeannie Paterson from the University of Melbourne. (ABC News: Patrick Stone)<\/p>\n
Consumer law expert Jeannie Paterson, from the University of Melbourne, believes a crucial factor in the case will be whether a reasonable shopper was misled by what they were shown on the sales tickets.<\/p>\n
Do you have a story to share?\u00a0Email\u00a0Specialist.Team@abc.net.au<\/a><\/p>\n “It requires the ACCC to show that the conduct in question, was either misleading or likely to mislead,” she said.<\/p>\n “But they don’t need to show anyone was actually misled.”<\/p>\n Woolworths denies any wrongdoing<\/p>\n Woolworths has pushed back, arguing its “Prices Dropped” prices weren’t fake or illusory at all.<\/p>\n Here’s what’s at stake when the ACCC takes Coles to court<\/a><\/p>\n The “case of the century” is set to play out in the federal court this month, with the ACCC taking on supermarket giant Coles for what it claims are “illusory” discounts.<\/p>\n In court documents, it maintained the information it gave shoppers was “factually accurate and in no way misleading or fake”.<\/p>\n It also said suppliers had requested price increases at “four to five times” the rate they had before the COVID-19 pandemic and that occurred during high inflation.<\/p>\n This meant the “previous regular price” the ACCC had used for comparison was no longer relevant because it was charged before the ACCC agreed to a higher price.<\/p>\n In a statement, Woolworths said “at no stage did we mislead or deceive customers”. (ABC News: Billy Cooper)<\/p>\n Mr Fels doesn’t believe this argument will succeed.<\/p>\n “That’s irrelevant to the case. The case is about misleading the public about the prices, it’s not about whether they’re justified,” he said.<\/p>\n In a statement, Woolworths told the ABC that after the COVID pandemic there was rampant inflation that put pressure on its suppliers and it maintained the Prices Dropped program in an attempt to reduce the impact on customers.<\/p>\n The company also said it fundamentally disagrees with the claims made and “at no stage did we mislead or deceive customers”.<\/p>\n Cases a ‘litmus test’ of Australian consumer law<\/p>\n Both cases against the major supermarkets have the potential to reshape retail pricing.<\/p>\n “The outcome could transform how prices are set \u2026 to make sure that discounts are genuine,” Mr Fels said.<\/p>\n The price patterns that landed Coles in court<\/a><\/p>\n The pricing patterns of these six products show how Coles stands accused of using its Down Down marketing campaign to dupe shoppers.<\/p>\n Professor Paterson believes it will be a “litmus test” of how far Australian consumer law can go.<\/p>\n “I think many people would say the pricing games that supermarkets have been playing with their campaigns \u2026 may not pass the pub test.<\/p>\n “Whether it’s against the law is not so clear.”<\/p>\n Mr Fels said if the ACCC was unsuccessful, it would be a huge challenge to the regulator’s credibility.<\/p>\n But if the watchdog won, it could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and a powerful message that there would be “big consequences” for bogus discounts.<\/p>\n The ACCC’s biggest consumer law finesVocational college Phoenix Institute<\/a> \u2014 fined $400 million for tricking students into thinking courses were free and offering so-called “free” laptops when this was not the case.Vocational college AIPE<\/a> \u2014 fined $153 million for misleading vulnerable students into thinking courses were free and offering so-called “free” laptops.Car maker Volkswagen<\/a> \u2014 fined $125 million for making false claims about diesel emissions.Airline Qantas<\/a> \u2014 fined $100 million for selling tickets for flights it had decided to cancel.Telco Optus<\/a> \u2014 fined $100 million for selling First Nations and other vulnerable customers products they often did not want, could not afford or could not use where they lived.<\/p>\n Source: ACCC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did Woolworths trick shoppers into snapping up Tim Tams because they thought the price had dropped when really…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[11275,64,63,99,1108,300576,300572,300575,300573,300570,133356,300574,102,300571],"class_list":{"0":"post-619923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-accc","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-court","13":"tag-discount-pricing","14":"tag-everyday-low-price","15":"tag-low-discounting","16":"tag-lower-shelf-price","17":"tag-product-pricing","18":"tag-specials","19":"tag-tim-tams","20":"tag-woolworths","21":"tag-woolworths-specials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Close](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/a049d40ab19ac4fd71ccc3c6f6f8a2d2.jpeg\")
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