{"id":864194,"date":"2026-08-22T09:12:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T09:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/864194\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T09:12:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T09:12:20","slug":"coles-website-down-after-viral-reddit-post-sees-customers-buy-cases-of-alcoholic-drinks-at-nearly-80-discount-consumer-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/864194\/","title":{"rendered":"Coles website down after viral Reddit post sees customers buy cases of alcoholic drinks at nearly 80% discount | Consumer affairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Coles<\/a> website and app have gone offline hours after a viral Reddit post highlighted a nearly 80% discount on 24-packs of premixed alcoholic drinks.<\/p>\n

For several hours on Saturday, both the Coles website and app displayed a message advising \u201cwe\u2019re currently offline \u2013 but not for long\u201d. The website and app came back online, before the website went down again during the afternoon. It was back up at about 4pm AEST.<\/p>\n

It came after a post by an Australian Reddit account on Friday about a discount on 24-packs of Jack Daniel\u2019s & Cola 330ml bottles sold via Coles by subsidiary Liquorland which were marked down from $130 to $27, a saving of $103, or just under 80%.<\/p>\n

\u201cFound this. I\u2019m assuming it\u2019s a mistake?!\u201d wrote the account, which is run by the operators of price tracking website CW Scanner.<\/p>\n

They subsequently noticed similar discounts, lowering the price of 24-packs of premixed drinks and beer to a price similar to that of discounted four- or six-packs.<\/p>\n

The operators of CW Scanner told Guardian Australia that the post had received more than 180,000 views. Other users described ordering online with the discounts, which did not appear on the Liquorland website itself, with one having it matched at their local liquor store.<\/p>\n

But on Saturday, Reddit users noticed the Coles website had gone down, while some later wrote that their orders had been cancelled by Coles. The Coles website and app came back online briefly on Saturday afternoon, with the beer and premixed drinks categories removed. The website subsequently went offline again.<\/p>\n

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In a statement on Saturday afternoon, a Coles spokesperson said it was aware of a technical issue affecting its website and app, and \u201cwas working quickly to restore services\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to a technical error, select 24-pack beer and RTD [ready-to-drink] products were incorrectly priced on our website,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe error has been corrected, and impacted customers are being notified. Any customers charged for the affected items will be refunded in accordance with our normal refund process. We apologise for the error and any inconvenience caused.\u201d<\/p>\n

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CW Scanner identified at least 20 24-packs \u2013 or cartons \u2013 of beer and 46 cases of premixed drinks affected by the discounts, with the average discount on beer about $49, and premixed drinks $111.<\/p>\n

The largest discount, on 24-packs of Smirnoff Crush Mango & Peach Zero Sugar 6% 440ml cans, provided a saving of $173, down to $29 from $202.<\/p>\n

Using data from CW Scanner, the Guardian has reported<\/a> that promotional prices switched on and off at Coles and Woolworths largely in sync over the past two years.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, a court found<\/a> Coles\u2019 \u201cDown Down\u201d promotions in some cases falsely led customers to believe<\/a> they were enjoying a true price reduction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Coles website and app have gone offline hours after a viral Reddit post highlighted a nearly 80%…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-864194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864194","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=864194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}