Analysis released May 18, 2026, reveals that Australia’s two largest supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths, frequently switch product promotions in sync. Data from CW Scanner shows that for several items, including electric toothbrushes, one retailer moves to full price almost exactly as the other begins a discount, maintaining a high/low pricing cycle.
The pricing behavior of Coles and Woolworths has come under intense scrutiny following new data analysis and a landmark federal court ruling. The findings suggest a pattern where the two dominant players in the Australian grocery market coordinate the timing of their promotional cycles, effectively rotating discounts on high-ticket items to ensure consumers rarely find deep discounts at both stores simultaneously.
Coordinated Promotional Cycles at Coles and Woolworths
Data provided to Guardian Australia by the price tracking website CW Scanner indicates that for at least 10 products, promotional switches at Coles and Woolworths occur largely in sync
. This pattern is most evident in a high/low
pricing strategy, where products oscillate between a standard full price and a discounted promotional price.
An Oral-B electric toothbrush kit serves as a primary example of this behavior. The analysis found the kit advertised at Woolworths for $99.50, representing a half-price bargain compared to its usual price of $199. During the same window, the identical item was priced at $199 at Coles. However, the data shows that just one week prior, the situation was reversed: the kit was 50% off at Coles while remaining at full price at Woolworths.
This synchronized switching extends beyond personal care items to staples such as ice-cream and frozen pizza. The data suggests that when one supermarket activates a promotion, the other often returns the item to full price, or vice versa, creating a cycle that limits the ability of consumers to leverage competition between the two giants to find the lowest possible price at any single moment.
Federal Court Rules Against Coles Down Down Discounts
The revelation of synced promotions follows a May 13, 2026, ruling by the federal court regarding the pricing integrity of Coles. Justice Michael O’Bryan ruled that the supermarket misled consumers through its Down Down
promotional program, which claimed to offer discounts that the court found were not genuine
.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) brought the suit, alleging that Coles deceived customers across 245 products, including items ranging from biscuits to toothpaste, over a 15-month period between February 2022 and May 2023. The ACCC argued that Coles had temporarily raised prices immediately before applying the discounts, thereby neutralizing any actual saving for the consumer.
The Down Down tickets for the sample products would not have been misleading if the products had been sold at the ‘Was’ price for a minimum period of twelve weeks immediately preceding the Down Down promotion.
Justice Michael O’Bryan, Federal Court of Australia
The 12-Week Benchmark for Genuine Savings
The court’s decision establishes a concrete temporal benchmark for what constitutes a genuine discount in the Australian retail sector. According to Justice O’Bryan, for a Was
price to be considered legitimate and not misleading to an ordinary consumer, the product must have been sold at that higher price for at least 12 weeks prior to the promotion.
To test the ACCC’s claims, the court examined 14 sample products. The ruling found that 13 of these 14 products did not represent a genuine saving and would have misled the average shopper. The only exception in the sample was Nature’s Gift Dog Food; the court ruled this specific promotion was not misleading because the ticket did not include a was
price.
Coles has stated it is reviewing the judgement, maintaining that its priority has always been … delivering value to our customers
. However, the ruling opens the door for significant penalties and sets a legal precedent for how supermarket chains must document and prove the validity of their promotional pricing.
Systemic Pricing Patterns in the Supermarket Duopoly
The combination of the CW Scanner data and the federal court ruling points to a systemic approach to pricing within the Australian grocery duopoly. The use of high/low pricing allows retailers to create the perception of value through deep discounts while maintaining high average margins over time.
When these cycles are synchronized between the two largest competitors, the competitive pressure that typically drives prices down is mitigated. Instead of a race to the bottom, the market exhibits a rotational pattern. This ensures that while a consumer might find a bargain at one store this week, the alternative store provides a price floor that prevents the discount from becoming a permanent market shift.
The ACCC’s focus on the 12-week price history suggests a regulatory shift toward auditing the lifecycle of a product’s price rather than just the price at the moment of sale. By targeting the Down Down
mechanism, regulators are challenging the practice of artificial price inflation used to manufacture the appearance of a bargain.
As Justice O’Bryan is also presiding over a similar case against Woolworths, the industry expects further rulings that could force a fundamental change in how promotional pricing is advertised across the country. For now, the data indicates that the perceived competition between Australia’s two largest supermarkets may be more choreographed than consumers realize, particularly regarding the timing and validity of their most prominent discounts.
