Coles last MSC with national pricing

Discount supermarket Aldi was quick today to commend Coles for “finally taking the step towards providing greater price transparency for consumers” through a national pricing policy.

Coles is the last of the major supermarket chains (MSCs) to introduced a national pricing policy after Aldi introduced it in April 2008, followed by Woolworths last year.

Ian McLeod, Coles managing director, said today the retailer would introduce the new measure in response to customer feedback that charging different prices on the same grocery item was “unfair”.

“From February 1, Coles will apply its lowest prices to more than 8000 grocery products including meat, seafood, dairy, deli and bakery products across the country and the remaining grocery products will be matched to our lowest prices in each state,” he said.

For the about 17,000 remaining products, Coles pricing would be made uniform within states to reflect supply arrangements, which were often made with statewide rather than national suppliers, the company said.

Tom Daunt, manager director - buying Aldi Stores, said there was no reason why people should not have clear and transparent information to make informed buying decisions.

“The practice of inconsistent pricing has been in place in Australia for far too long and we believe this is unacceptable,” he said.

“Aldi was able to introduce national pricing after just a few short years and there is no reason why the other major supermarket chains can’t follow our lead.”

He cited the 2009 CHOICE supermarket survey which found Aldi was 25% cheaper than its closest priced competitors. “And that is in the current environment of inconsistent pricing,” he said.

“Once all the MSCs have rolled out national pricing, Australian consumers will be better able to see how they can get the best value for money.”

He said Aldi had led the industry in a number of initiatives such as unit pricing, which it introduced in November 2007 before legislation forced the MSCs only introduced it.

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