3 September 2008
INDEPENDENT grocery retailers, locked in battle against Woolworths and Coles, have complained to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission about its website, which they say is misleading and hindering their businesses.
The commission's GROCERYchoice website puts all independent retailers together, grouping stores of different sizes from different chains.The website released its second wave of monthly price comparisons yesterday, showing Coles was the cheapest retailer in 40 of 61 regions in Australia, although independents have narrowed the gap a little since early August.The site has had 3.3 million hits in its first month of operation but has been sharply criticised by independent retailers for misleading consumers about their prices.The commission's chairman, Graeme Samuel, yesterday refused to say how many complaints had been made about the website."I'm not going to get into that discussion," he said. "The independents may not like the fact that they're not as competitive in pricing as either Aldi or Coles or Woolworths.""I'm not going to buy into the constant dialogue that has gone on as to whether it's benefitting one side over the other. I got into that last month [when the website was launched] and it may be that it just goes on forever."A price comparison conducted by the Herald yesterday showed that a smaller IGA supermarket in Hall Street in Bondi Beach was competitive against the much larger Coles and Woolworths supermarkets in Bondi Junction for a number of staple products such as milk, bread and eggs.But thecommission's basic staples basket in Sydney's eastern suburbs was found to be $11 cheaper at Coles and Woolworths than at independents.The best performing retailer was Aldi, whose basic staples basket was more than 24 per cent cheaper than its nearest competitor in eastern Sydney.Australian Retailers Association executive director Richard Evans said the website had unfairly targetted small businesses."It doesn't provide any identification of independents and although good intentioned, I think the people who designed it don't understand how the industry works," he said. Southern Sydney Retailers Association president Craig Kelly said there was nowhere for independent retailers to complain, as the competition regulator was itself responsible for providing consumers with the allegedly misleading information."If [GROCERYchoice] was put out by Woolworths [or] Coles, the independents would be taking court action as it is misleading and deceptive, and have it closed down," he said."But it's put out by the ACCC, who have been become apologists for Woolworths and Coles as they watch on as supermarket prices accelerate faster in Australia than anywhere else in the developed world." Mr Samuel said it was not possible to measure whether the GROCERYchoice website has put downward pressure on prices in its first month of operation. The basket of 500 products used for the survey was changed by the commission leading to an "apples and oranges" comparison, he said.
