{"id":677563,"date":"2026-05-17T23:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T23:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/677563\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T23:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T23:44:07","slug":"toothbrushes-ice-cream-and-frozen-pizza-data-reveals-how-coles-and-woolworths-switch-promotions-in-sync-supermarkets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/677563\/","title":{"rendered":"Toothbrushes, ice-cream and frozen pizza: data reveals how Coles and Woolworths switch promotions in sync | Supermarkets"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019re looking to buy an electric toothbrush. You\u2019re in Woolworths<\/a> and you see one of the Oral-B kits advertised for sale at $99.50.<\/p>\n

The product appears to be a half-price bargain, reduced from its usual price of $199, which also happens to be how much the same item costs at Coles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But what you wouldn\u2019t know, unless you were paying very close attention, is that the toothbrush kit had been 50% off at Coles and full price at Woolworths just a week earlier \u2013 or that, more often than not, when it was on promotion at Coles, it was full price at Woolworths, and vice versa.<\/p>\n

New analysis of the \u201chigh\/low\u201d pricing strategy employed by Australia\u2019s two biggest supermarkets comes after a court found this week<\/a> Coles deceived customers with misleading discounts in its \u201cDown Down\u201d promotional program.<\/p>\n

The Oral-B toothbrush is one of 10 products whose prices switched on and off promotion at Coles and Woolworths largely in sync over the past two years, according to data provided to Guardian Australia by the price tracking website CW Scanner.<\/p>\n

The products, which include Dr Oetker Ristorante frozen pepperoni pizza, Blackmores fish oil tablets, Weis mango and ice-cream bars, mini Magnums and Quilton toilet paper, are a sample of the many products that follow this pricing pattern, according to CW Scanner.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

While \u201chigh\/low\u201d pricing is separate to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission\u2019s proceedings against Coles and Woolworths, the tactic raises further questions over the lengths the major supermarkets take to compete against one another. The strategy first came to light during the 2024 ACCC supermarkets inquiry and in analysis <\/a>for Guardian Australia by Greg Jericho.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not what competition looks like,\u201d said Erin Turner, the chief executive at the Consumer Policy Research Centre.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen markets work, businesses feel pressure to give customers a great deal all of the time \u2013 not every other week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner said cyclical \u201chigh\/low\u201d pricing could be misleading if it is combined with claims in store that \u201ctrick\u201d people into thinking they\u2019re paying a rare low price, rather than the discounted price that occurs every two weeks.<\/p>\n

Oral-B iO3 Electric Toothbrush<\/a><\/p>\n

In some cases, the switch from a promotional price to full price happens simultaneously, or almost simultaneously, across the two supermarkets.<\/p>\n

The data shows Natural Confectionary Co\u2019s Juicy Burst lollies have often gone on sale for $2 at Coles on the same day they revert to their full price of $5 at Woolworths.<\/p>\n

Natural Confectionary Company Juicy Bursts<\/a><\/p>\n

It is similar with 1.25-litre bottles of Coca-Cola: they have been on sale for $2 at Woolworths while being sold at their full price of $4 at Coles. Often those prices swap on the same day.<\/p>\n

The data shows that Fairy 5 Power Action Lemon dishwasher tablets sold for the same price at Coles and Woolworths for a few days. Then the supermarkets swapped again, with one selling the product for $76 and the other for a sale price of $30.<\/p>\n

chart showing cyclical pricing for coca cola<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr Christina Anthony, a consumer behaviour expert at the University of Sydney, said the pricing tactic was \u201ccommercially rational\u201d and it wasn\u2019t necessarily misleading or a sign of \u201cactive collusion\u201d between the major supermarkets.<\/p>\n

However, she said the strategy could erode transparency for shoppers and make it even harder to know what items\u2019 \u201creal\u201d prices were.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe research tells us consumers have very poor memory for price and it\u2019s more about whether it feels like it\u2019s cheap or not,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Andy Kelly, a director at the consumer advocacy group Choice, said \u201chigh\/low\u201d pricing tickets had a \u201chuge impact\u201d on consumer behaviour and skewed shoppers\u2019 perceptions of price.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s also an argument that if you\u2019re putting a product on sale \u2026 it\u2019s skewing the value of that product,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they\u2019re selling it at 50% for at least half the time, does that kind of become the usual price of that product?\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the strategy disadvantaged consumers who were not able to wait to buy something when it was on sale, or those who did not have time to track pricing patterns.<\/p>\n

The ACCC\u2019s final report from its examination of the supermarket industry said the widespread use of \u201chigh\/low\u201d pricing and its cyclical nature meant products could be on promotion a lot of the time.<\/p>\n

Products with cyclical discount pricing at Coles and Woolworths<\/a><\/p>\n

At Woolworths, an item may be promoted on special for up to 26 weeks a year excluding multi-buy promotion, the ACCC report said.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Coles\u2019 internal policies state that specials must not be offered for more than half the year, cumulatively.<\/p>\n

During private hearings, a Coles category manager told the inquiry they preferred to avoid clashing promotions with Woolworths on the same product but they were not aware when their rival would put particular items on special.<\/p>\n

In response to the Guardian, Coles said there were \u201cmany factors which help us decide if and when to put items on special, including seasonality, availability, supplier preference, but also the cadence with which our customers most commonly purchase products so they can access great value prices when they need it\u201d.<\/p>\n

A Woolworths spokespersons said the timing of promotions was influenced by suppliers \u201cwho need to have adequate stock to meet higher demand over a promotional period\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have any visibility of our competitors\u2019 future pricing or promotional plans,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

Prof Gary Mortimer, a retail expert at the Queensland University of Technology, said \u201chigh\/low\u201d pricing was often driven by the suppliers rather than being initiated by the supermarkets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happens is suppliers, say Arnott\u2019s, want to always make sure their Tim Tams are the market leader,\u201d he said. \u201cThey will fund a promotional campaign at Coles this week \u2026 and then it will rotate back [to Woolworths]\u201d.<\/p>\n

The operator of the CW Scanner website, who shared the data with the Guardian, said the site allowed shoppers to compare prices between Coles and Woolworths by scanning the barcode of an item or entering its URL.<\/p>\n

They said they weren\u2019t scraping data, which was legal but against the supermarkets\u2019 terms and conditions, and instead took information from their websites application programming interfaces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019re looking to buy an electric toothbrush. You\u2019re in Woolworths and you see one of the Oral-B kits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-677563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677563","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=677563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}