Comments on: Cheapest online supermarket shopping: Coles Online or Woolworths Homeshop?

By: mike

mike — Sun, 23 May 2010 01:10:39 +0000

As HR also said I think you’re right that a lot of people won’t like the fact that the price difference with a bricks and mortar shop is unknown.

The only thing I would add though is that my experience of Woolworths is that they actually have free delivery slots (I guess because they want to try and even out their peaks and troughs in delivery requirements). This is usually from about 3pm to 9pm if I remember correctly. If you are not time poor and can afford to be around at home for extended delivery slots you can therefore pay nothing.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Wed, 19 May 2010 17:09:17 +0000

The online prices are consistently higher than supermarket prices for both stores and they will use the excuse noted in their reply to your enquiry “Not all supermarkets charge the same prices in each store for all items, therefore the prices online may differ to that of your local Woolworths supermarket.” I think until they charge the same price in all areas you will never be able to accurately compare prices. I think it will be mainly used by the time poor rich. Low socio economic groups will not be able to afford to pay the higher prices and delivery, even the money saved on specials will be gobbled up by the delivery fee. I guess that’s the price you have to pay for convenience, great if you can afford it, and we wouldn’t want to cut into the billions of dollars of profit these monopolising corporations make now would we.

By: HR

HR — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:59:51 +0000

I have recently found the opposite to be true…for example some of the baking goods- pans, dishes, cookie molds etc were at 50% special (saving about 6 AUD) on Homeshop, whereas in-store ( I checked in 2 Woolies stores) it was at max, just a 2 dollar saving…
Found the whole thing really weird…& finally bought the stuff elsewhere…like most people I prefer uniform pricing & till Woolworths can give me a secure feeling of not being ripped off, I refuse to be loyal to them…

By: Kelly hellyer

Kelly hellyer — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 01:54:51 +0000

Like powdered milk , a short while ago one could buy 1.25 kilos for about $3.98. then all of a sudden they made it into 1 kilo packs and put the price up to about$5.00 LESS BUT PRICE MUCH HIGHER .
Can you please tell me what is going on with these companies As I think Ned Kelly was an angel in comparison

By: Dean

Dean — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:12:52 +0000

online shopping is way more expensive online at both woolies and coles. we have very little competition in australia so what ever we do we get ripped off. i wish the government would step in and bring these supermarket monsters back in to line. talk about being australian. i would rather shop at aldi and not get ripped off at least that is australian by being priced the same throughout the country. coles and woolies are shocking.

By: mike

mike — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:45:18 +0000

Yep Pepsi, I think these are really good questions.

Depending on how you value your time (let’s say you think a shopping trip is a 2 hour exercise and you reckon your time is worth somewhere between $10 and $25 an hour) the delivery charge of having something home delivered at say $10 is minor by comparison.

And that’s without even thinking about car running costs – which are usually reckoned to be around 40c a kilometre in Australia for example.

Start thinking about it like that and it looks like the only reason not to grocery shop online is either because a) you get a lot of enjoyment out of being in the store or b) because you can’t do it (you want to be able to choose your own fruit / can’t get the item, find online difficult etc etc)…

By: Pepsi

Pepsi — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:39:30 +0000

I wonder if your study were to look at how people tend to buy the same goods over time and how these trend up or down with seasonal inflation.

Also – how much time is spent collecting items? going to the shop? in traffic? weekend time? on petrol? car wear? etc – Depending on frequency of orders over a year – how do these costs compare to delivery charges?

By: mike

mike — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:28:04 +0000

Interesting article in the Australian business section today. Suggesting that many supermarket chains are likely to halve the number of distinct product lines they carry, and that the impact of this will be to make them more profitable.

By: Julie

Julie — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:53:18 +0000