Woolworths the expensive food people.

Santa · Guru

Woolworths the expensive food people.

Baz421 · Guru

My brother follow Coles specials each week and bulk buys specials most of the time, saves heaps. Woolies seems to be the same ie specials are good but the rest of the goods are dearer IMHO.

Santa · Guru

Sadly we don't have a Coles in our area.

Cupie · Guru

Pretty cheap for us on this week's shop.

SWMBO picked up a packet of dishwashing tablets advertised at around $13.

On checking the docket found that she was charged around $20.

I took it back & they gave it to us for FREE!!!

We do our weekly shop at WW because it is just down the road < 1 Km and not very busy mid week. Asian Students from the local townhouses fill the place at weekends & after dark.

Happywanderer · The Master

More expensive than what? There is different outlets with different comparisons. Aldi, Coles, IGA, Foodworks. Hard to compare.

dogbox · Guru

have you ever noticed when you go shopping for the specials you have to make sure you pick the right goods as they seem to put the special signs next to a similar product
an if you pick up the wrong one it's not a special

kandagal · Guru

What I don't like about Coles is that most of their specials are "two for the price of one". No room for 2 of everything in a M/H.

rockylizard · Guru

Happywanderer wrote:
More expensive than what? There is different outlets with different comparisons. Aldi, Coles, IGA, Foodworks. Hard to compare.

Gday...

I concur HW ... they are all much of a muchness - prices vary from week to week at them all - how on earth can a valid comparison be made.

There have been studies where a regimen of brand/products are compared to EACH supermarket. The results vary each week - they are all "the most expensive" almost on a rotation basis.

Additionally, studies have also been conducted that have shown that any of the supermarket chains are dearer (or cheaper) by postcode. Prices in different suburbs of Melbourne (for instance) vary dependent on postcode - read socio-economic background. It is often dearer in the 'poorer' suburbs compared to the 'more affluent' suburbs. Absolutely counter to one's intuition. cry confuse

Cheers - John

Bruce and Bev · Guru

All these large national food retailersare totally cynical and it has been shown in proper surveys by organisations like Choice that prices are dearer in low socio-economic areas than the richer suburbs. Is that because they think the people in the former are dumb or cant travel out of the area???? Very sad and those of you who are a shareholder in Westfarmers (owns Coles) or Woolworths should be raising the issue at shareholder meetings.

Is one dearer than the other - a lot of the time it actually depends on the quality of the fresh food - fresher seems to = dearer.

The Woolworths MD did state last year when Marsters were pulling them into the ecomonic mud, the the food business generated more profit per unit than Coles did. Does that mean they are retail dearer or just cleaver at doing their business?

We shop at both and find quality and price varies daily

Papou · Senior Member

Personally I find them much a much and use each to our advantage where we can but overall they have us all by the short n curlies so have to shop more or less at one or the other ey :).

Bevandy2 · Senior Member

In our country town we use Woolies purely for convenience, they stock so much more than just food and it's easy to get everything in one shop.
Other options are IGA, good, but limited stocks, and ALDI, useless if you are shopping for groceries, OK if you want rows of junk food, or hardware.

I don't think Woolies are cheap, they have to add on the petrol discount somewhere, and I found on occasions our local Shell servo is cheaper without any supermarket discount.

Also must depend on the location and where they get their supplies, and the managers mood of the day.

Did you hear about Woolies "Anzac Fresh" hoo haa. This week we bought some Anzac fresh radishes, 100 years old. So much for the fresh food people.

However, let's be positive, they do employ locals, and school leavers, so not all bad news. Pricing seems to be one of life's big mysteries.

Bevan

Cloak · Guru

I've observed lately that they the big 2 seem to shut down checkouts and try to force you through the self serve lane.

If they keep that up I will go back to Aldi.

Our local IGA is very expensive so we avoid that one.

Bruce and Bev · Guru

Steve. The self service checkouts were and are still promoted by Coles/Woolies/Bunnings and Marsters (who started off as totally self service but got so much adverse comment they generally have one human checkout now) as being convenient and faster for customers.

This is absolute garbage!!!! It is done to cut back on staff costs. Cutting staff or cutting the hours they work each week by employing part-timers and casuals is the easiest and quickest way for them to meet their budgets.

I refuse to use self service and will stand there for 5 mins or so to be served - to help preserve workers jobs..........why don't you do the same, we have an unemployment level too high and growing - don't make it worse by being lazy and using these self service cons

Cupie · Guru

Cloak wrote:
I've observed lately that they the big 2 seem to shut down checkouts and try to force you through the self serve lane.

If they keep that up I will go back to Aldi.

Our local IGA is very expensive so we avoid that one.

I only rarely go to ALDI, except perhaps for selected hardware specials. The main complaint about ALDI are the long check out queues. This seems to be a constant at the 5 or 6 ALDI stores in our general location.

Also they don't provide much of a choice in brands of similar products.

I do prefer their cracker biscuits & those sorts of things.

Pejay · Guru

I agree with Rocky Lizard, we had two IGA's on the island owned by the same people, and the one at Pacific Harbour (up market end of the island) were a lot more expensive to one other one down at Bongaree. They sold the one at PH, and now we have two Woolies, an Aldi and an IGA. Makes for better pricing and greater choice.

Gundog · Guru

I love the self service checkouts, in and out in no time.

AS for shopping we are in the habit of almost shopping daily, instead of filling a trolley with a mountain of product, its a short walk down the street to our nearest supermarket, just buy what we need and back home in a jiffy.

Now and then if we are out we will drop in to a Coles Express for our milk and bread while we get our fuel, I have noticed they have lots of grocery items the same price as the supermarket, like the 24 pack 600ml water both the servo and supermarket sell it for $7. I hear that very soon there will be frozen food available at some of the Coles Express stores.

When in SA I prefer to shop in Drakes Foodland, exceptional service and very friendly staff.

Oh by the way we don't concern ourselves about price, we buy what we like rather than compare prices also think what the end uses is for ie. we don't bake cakes etc. so we buy plain label flour.

Santa · Guru

Guess it was worth asking the question, certainly generated a bit of interest, if anything it underlines the fact that we're all different and see things differently. smile

Lesley F · Senior Member

Home brands are much cheaper than specials.

deverall11 · Guru

Aldi has forced Woolworths and Coles to revise their prices. Aldi were the first one to introduce a loaf of bread for $0.85. Woolworths and Coles decided it was a good idea to follow suit. 95gm cans of tuna at Aldi for $0.79. Once again Woolwoths and Coles tried to follow suit. 500gm tub of Olive oil spread for $2.00. Same item at Woolworths for $4.00. Except for a few things that are not available at Aldi, why would you go to Woolworths and Coles. Cupie, maybe longer wait at the checkout but we find our shopping trolley usually between 1/3 and 1/2 cheaper. Logic would have it that it is worth the wait.
IMHO Aldi has forced Woolworths and Coles to seriously revise their pricing. Makes you wonder how long Woolworths and Coles have been reaping us off.
Thank you Aldi.
Larry

Santa · Guru

We've been down the generic branding and Aldi path, never again, guess if your happy eating/using that stuff fair enough, while I agree they certainly are cheaper they simply don't suit our palate/purposes, there always seems to be a quality compromise, perhaps we're just too fussy.

About the only generic product we buy is sugar, even then the saving is small, a kg of sugar lasts us forever. smile

2foot6 · Veteran Member

We have a newly opened Aldi in my town,the waiting time in the queue is less than the queue in Wolies...oops sorry Woolies. Our Woolies is a mid sized store with about 12 check outs,on a normal day at 5 oclock ,4 -5 check outs opened,23 people waiting in the 12 items or less queue.I stopped going there 12 months ago due to the poor service.I have shopped between Aldi and IGA since and don't regret it. IGA still has the big brand items I use ,where Woolies dropped them a couple of years ago replacing them with their own brand. Aldi has 5 checkouts,always one open and they open another quickly as required,(short waiting times).I have never used and never will use a self serve checkout ,it's more important to give jobs to the younger people to help prepare them for life. We are told it's a user pays society today but it seems we pay to serve our selves,the cost is the loss of jobs for the younger people and bigger profits for the money hungry conglomerates.........cheers Peter.

Chicken strangler · Senior Member

Woolworths aligned with Hiils industries recently giving them exclusive rights to sell the iconic Hills brand products. I.E clothes lines,clothes airers,garden sprayers ETC. so now Bunnings or Mitre 10 are unable to order Hills products at all. I understand there is still some stock in some of those stores because or warehousing And previous bulk buying.

The idea was to get their product into the Woolworths Masters store and once there products were exclusive, well with no competitor guess what happens to prices?

What has happened since the deal was struck Master have decided to stop building any more new stores. Hills now have a gigantic problem. Bunnings have shut their account with Hills as has Mitre10.

Other examples of exclusive partnerships and therefore no price comparisons possible include Ryobi, Polly paint products, Ozito power tools, Rolltrack fittings. Who knows what else. They can price these products at any selling price, simple, no competition

Ralph

chicken strangler.

Cupie · Guru

Chicken strangler wrote:
Woolworths aligned with Hiils industries recently giving them exclusive rights to sell the iconic Hills brand products. I.E clothes lines,clothes airers,garden sprayers ETC. so now Bunnings or Mitre 10 are unable to order Hills products at all. I understand there is still some stock in some of those stores because or warehousing And previous bulk buying.
The idea was to get their product into the Woolworths Masters store and once there products were exclusive, well with no competitor guess what happens to prices?
What has happened since the deal was struck Master have decided to stop building any more new stores. Hills now have a gigantic problem. Bunnings have shut their account with Hills as has Mitre10.
Other examples of exclusive partnerships and therefore no price comparisons possible include Ryobi, Polly paint products, Ozito power tools, Rolltrack fittings. Who knows what else. They can price these products at any selling price, simple, no competition
Ralph
chicken strangler.

Funny that you should make that comment about Hills & Bunnings.

I just (A few minutes ago) purchased a Hills extenda clothes line from Bunnings, and the helpful attendant made a comment about it being 'one of the last left' Hills brand clothes lines they had.

It was a bit dearer than the others but the brand name got me.

Cadpete · Guru

I'm another one who refuses to use 'self serve' registers. I have two children at Uni but the number of jobs available to them is shinking rapidly . When Woolies or Coles want to PAY me the correct hourly rate for serving myself I'll consider using them - but I don't think they'll want to pay my hourly rate biggrin biggrin . As to the original posters question Coles and Woolies are each as bad. We used to shop 50% IGA and 50% Woolies/Coles but unfortunately the IGA closed at the shopping centre we use so we only have the coice of the 'big 2' now cry

Knightrider · Senior Member

I'm a share holder of both Woolworths & Wesfarmers and have been for many years and I have made a good income from their shares through dividends, franking credits & trading. My suggestion to non shareholders, who are usually the ones who complain about companies like Woollies, Coles, Telstra & the Banks etc.., is to buy some of their shares and enjoy sharing in their profits. Whinging & complaining will not help you put food on your table or the little extras when travelling. Just a suggestion!!

hako · Guru

Chicken strangler wrote:
Woolworths aligned with Hiils industries recently giving them exclusive rights to sell the iconic Hills brand products. I.E clothes lines,clothes airers,garden sprayers ETC. so now Bunnings or Mitre 10 are unable to order Hills products at all. I understand there is still some stock in some of those stores because or warehousing And previous bulk buying.
The idea was to get their product into the Woolworths Masters store and once there products were exclusive, well with no competitor guess what happens to prices?
What has happened since the deal was struck Master have decided to stop building any more new stores. Hills now have a gigantic problem. Bunnings have shut their account with Hills as has Mitre10.
Other examples of exclusive partnerships and therefore no price comparisons possible include Ryobi, Polly paint products, Ozito power tools, Rolltrack fittings. Who knows what else. They can price these products at any selling price, simple, no competition
Ralph
chicken strangler.

Correct about Bunnings but the Hills website says their products are available retail from Mitre 10, Stratco, True Value hardware, Masters, Bing Lee, Home Hardware, The Good Guys plus a few more.

Regards

ballast2 · Guru

G'day all. Sometimes I wish we had other choices. in Darwin we have the big two and some smaller shops. would love Aldi or a Super IGA to come. we can only hope
Cheers

Santa · Guru

Knightrider wrote:
I'm a share holder of both Woolworths & Wesfarmers and have been for many years and I have made a good income from their shares through dividends, franking credits & trading. My suggestion to non shareholders, who are usually the ones who complain about companies like Woollies, Coles, Telstra & the Banks etc.., is to buy some of their shares and enjoy sharing in their profits. Whinging & complaining will not help you put food on your table or the little extras when travelling. Just a suggestion!!

Hmmm, yep, some of us are fortunate enough to be in the position of owning shares in various companies.

I guess most of us simply don't feel the need to brag about it. wink

2foot6 · Veteran Member

Whinging & complaining will not help you put food on your table or the little extras when travelling. Just a suggestion!!

I suppose if we didn't have to pay for the share holders percentage we could put the little extras on the table when travelling.......just a suggestion..................cheers Peter

-- Edited by 2foot6 on Sunday 19th of April 2015 09:09:09 PM

Knightrider · Senior Member

Sorry, not bragging but just trying to give some of you people a clue to improving your finances and then you wouldn't have to complain about costs all the time. No problems, just do what your doing & I'll continue to do what I'm doing. Good luck!

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.