Yahoo Finance Incredible Coles trick helps shoppers cut grocery bills: 'Up to $99 off per item'
Customers will be able to see when products go up and down in price and make wiser shopping decisions.
An Aussie data scientist has developed a web browser hack that allows Coles customers to see when items might soon come down in price. With many shoppers impacted by the cost of living crisis, it can make a big difference if a product is even $1 cheaper or more expensive.
Adam Williamson created a Google Chrome extension that trawls through online data about Coles' prices and it will show you how long an item spends at a certain price before going up or down. He told Yahoo Finance that around 1,000 people have downloaded extension in the last few days.
"I built this Chrome extension mostly for myself... And I was clicking around, playing with it, and then I thought, 'I'll share one of the insights on TikTok'," he said.
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That first video has racked up more than 200,000 views since it was posted last week.
Williamson said there appears to be a huge appetite for Aussies wanting to know the best time to shop at Coles for various items.
There are already plenty of apps on the market that compare items between Coles and Woolworths.
But, the data scientist was more keen on exposing price fluctuations at one supermarket.
"I find it a lot more interesting to compare the supermarket to themselves. Was it $2 a month ago? Is this special down from $6 actually an increase of $1?" he said.
"I think that's why people are loving this because it gives them the ability to see a trend and almost predict the price as well."
What can you find with the Coles Chrome extension?
The Chrome extension allows you to see whether an item stays at a certain price for a period of time.
Products can change in price every week. Other times they stay at a point for up to 49 days and then come down.
But it also helps shoppers see if confusing price tags are representing a true markdown.
For example, if Coles tags an item saying the product is down 50 cents, customers can see if that is a markdown on a recent price, one from weeks ago or if its gone through several price cycles.
Consumer advocacy group CHOICE recently found a quarter of Australian shoppers find it difficult to tell if a promotional tag in Coles, Woolworths and Aldi represents a genuine discount.
"This is particularly concerning considering many people are trying to make their grocery shop as affordable as possible in a cost of living crisis," Rosie Thomas, CHOICE director of campaigns, said.
The price changes can be substantial depending on what you buy.
Electric toothbrushes have some of the biggest discounts, with Williamson's Chrome extension showing an Oral B Pro electric toothbrush pack can sometimes be $199 and other times $99.50.
You can save up to $9 depending on when you buy your nappies, $6.75 for tea bags, $7 on olive oil, and $36.50 on dishwashing tablets.
Coles shoppers can download the extension here.
The extension is also available for Firefox users here.
Williamson is now working on a similar product for Woolworths.
Supermarket specials have been called out for being dodgy
CHOICE said promotional tags were so confusing as the language used was so wildly different across markets.
"This is particularly concerning considering many people are trying to make their grocery shop as affordable as possible in a cost of living crisis."
At Coles, the hardest label for shoppers to understand was 'while stocks last', with CHOICE finding less than half could determine if there was a deal on.
"To make things worse, even after asking Coles, CHOICE still doesn’t know if this is a discount or not,” Thomas said.
Shoppers were also confused about the 'down down' label.
Coles CEO Leah Weckert admitted in the supermarket inquiry that they could do a better job on pricing and discounts after being accused of underpricing wholesale value.
"There is no bad intent there, but we definitely could execute against it better, and we are working towards holding ourselves to a higher level of account on that," Weckert told the Senate.
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