When we rounded up all the store brand goods you could buy in a supermarket for less than a dollar earlier this week, I noted that Woolworths was charging more than Coles or ALDI for quite a few staple items and didn’t seem as committed to price-matching as it once was. It seems Woolworths has also belatedly noticed this trend — some of those items have now dropped back to the same price as its rivals.
While shopping yesterday, I noticed that tinned Home Brand diced tomatoes were priced at 59 cents — the same price as ALDI and one cent cheaper than Coles. When I assembled the list last weekend, they were priced at 80 cents. UHT milk, which had gone up to $1.10 at Woolworths, has also dropped back to $0.99.
The lesson here? Pricing does change in supermarkets frequently, so if you’re aiming to save as much as possible, you need to check regularly to ensure you’re finding the cheapest options. (That said, visiting multiple supermarkets to find cheaper items may be a poor time investment, unless they’re all in the same shopping centre.)
Comments
28 responses to “Woolworths Has Made Its Home Brand Prices More Competitive Again”
lol one cent which gets rounded up anyways
Yeah, if you pay by cash, doesn’t if you pay by card.
To be clear they don’t do any rounding until they get to the final tally, and you pay in Cash.
The prices for the crap they sell as “Home Brand” is neither here nor there… It’s the fact that they are replacing regular brands outright..! That and the fact that they are blatantly wrapping it in very similar colours and branding..! I find that products I regularly buy are no longer available and a “Home Brand” replacement in its place… I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, sooner or later, the only product you will be able to purchase, will be the cheapest imported stuff they can source, and cheaper aint better..! 🙁
Good point, the tomatoes in the above photo look JUST like all the other plain white tinned tomatoes on nearby shelves…
You clearly don’t get into Woolies that often..! I can assure you there is a plethora of products that do look very much like the name brands..!
Actually, I’m in there every couple of days (for milk if nothing else), but the point was about the above photo, and that packaging is NOTHING like the competing products.
Being as how you get in there so often you would, or should know that, that photo is clearly not the norm…!
You’ve mistaken the Woolworths Select brand with their Home Brand.
The Select range has packaging similar to name brands, however their Home Brand range does not.
I haven’t mistaken anything… The Select Brand is still in direct competition with name brands…!
Thats what I just said! Select is copying name brands, while the Homebrand is not.
The two brands are different, even if they are both peddled by Woolies.
You said I was mistaken, I simply pointed out that I was not..! 🙂
Bullshit. their “select” brand is still a home brand. It’s sold only by the one supermarket chain and it has that supermarkets name ON the product. So it IS a “home brand”. Dress it up how you like, doesn’t change that for all intensive purposes it IS a home brand.
Select is a home brand that copies name brands.
Home brand is a home brand that doesn’t copy name brands.
Or can’t people read anymore?
I never said that neither wasn’t a home brand.
As I noted in the original write-up, that worry doesn’t seem to be borne out by what’s on the shelves — far more space given over to brands than Home Brand in this supermarket.
I do the family shopping in my household and I shop at Woolies, mostly for the convenience and the lack of competition. As I noted to @juice, there is a lot of “Home Brand” products taking over from the name brands, at least in my neck of the woods..! As for far more name brands, well that’s bleeding obvious right now, but the Home Brands are becoming more prevalent, and slowly taking over. People sitting on their hands and pretending not to notice this market creep is what’s allowing this to happen in the first place…!
The lookalike stuff (which we’ve written about before http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2011/09/sneaky-ways-supermarket-house-brands-look-like-pricier-alternatives/) seems rather more common with the Select brand at Woolies — which is indeed a house brand, but not specifically Home Brand. It’s very evident in soft drinks, for instance — but for all that, still far more Coke on those shelves!
My point still stands though… Market creep for these products is increasing and they are marketing them, using similar branding to the original product… The quality of some of these products may even be similar for now, but I’ll lay odds that once the competition is mitigated the quality will drop too…! I can only reiterate my point, by saying that this is the pointy end of a downward trajectory to mediocre, or even downright rubbish products, that we’ll be stuck with..!
Just look at the wiki page that covers home brands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Store_brand
Makes it pretty clear that the Woolworths “select” range is still technically a home brand. And I agree with Timmahh on this one, there is a huge amount of their “select” home brand encroaching on basically all other products in woolies.
Where were you a couple days ago dude..? 🙂
Haha! Sorry, I clicked on this article via a button on Kotaku, I had no idea it was two days old, shoulda looked at the dates…. 😉
As noted elsewhere, you’re not looking at it through the correct ideological lens, you’re foolishly looking at what actually is.
WTF..?
Also, remember to check for any product from China – and for goodness sakes, DON’T BUY ANY FOOD FROM CHINA, no matter how cheap it is.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post/why-is-melamine-in-baby-formula-you-2008-09-24/?id=why-is-melamine-in-baby-formula-you-2008-09-24
In summary – if you don’t like mercury in your food, you won’t want melamine either – it’s NASTY stuff. The Chinese have put melamine in food more than once, have killed babies and poisoned over 54,000 others.
While you’re at it, write to Food Standards Australia and ask them to put laws to protect you and your family – if enough people write, maybe they will finally do something.
I noticed some Woolies Home Brand stuff is from “New Zealand using imported ingredients” – which doesn’t say anything, or allow consumers to make informed decisions to protect themselves and their families. All retailers and food suppliers are equally guilty, not just Woolies,
Yeah the food labeling is a joke
Supermarket “Home Brand” products are actually very high quality and do actually taste nice
There are a few homebrand products that I buy and use regularly and could not tell the difference in quality from a more expensive branded product
Packaging isn’t everything – just because it is “home brand” does not mean the quality is poorer
As I mentioned earlier, it’s about market creep, as for taste/quality, that would be quite subjective. The long term problem is the slow replacement of current name brands, and then the inevitable slide in quality. Remember, these guys aren’t your friend, they are there to get as much money off you as possible. Their only obligation is to the shareholders…!
That’s because a lot of the home brand stuff is made by the companies that make the name brand stuff. It’s basically the same product just in different packaging.
My mother works at a drinks company. They make one of the home brand colas. It’s exactly the same as their name brand cola, just put in a different bottle / label.