Woolworths will be battening down the hatches after ACCC slays Coles’ false discounts

May 14, 2026 — 12:54pm

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Times are tough in the suburban belts of Australian cities that are the lifeblood of our two largest grocers, Coles and Woolworths, which pocket $2 out of every $3 that Australians spend at a supermarket.

That rising cost of living provides a febrile backdrop to the Federal Court finding on Thursday that Coles misled shoppers with its “Down Down” fake discounts.

Not that the judgment from Justice Michael O’Bryan used that word. He preferred the bloodless, technical phrase “not genuine”. In simple terms, the judgment found that Coles couldn’t claim it had slashed the price of a product when it had been sold for less just weeks earlier, before a short term price bump in the middle.

Coles had worked on the basis that it could get away with four weeks of higher prices before luring in shoppers with a “Down Down” cut to a price that was........

© Brisbane Times