Coles Changes Their Mark Down Strategy

During the past week, our local Coles have changed their mark down strategy.

Previously the labels showed the original price, the marked down price and the percentage reduction but they now display the original price, the marked down price and the reduction in dollars.

Perhaps it is actually to assist those consumers who may not be able to simply comprehend percentages but I wonder if their research has found a way to make the same reduction appear to be a better deal.

Conversely, the local Woollies do neither with the mark down stickers showing only the reduced price.

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FRESH Duck Breasts hmmm how Fresh? Perhaps the FRESH in capitals is not to mean Fresh as I understand it but a product name type description. Or maybe they are just a bit too familiar Duck Breasts that get too fresh (familiar) with anyone.Puffery is what I think.

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I suppose they are fresh in the sense of being raw and uncooked
and unprocessed. Just meat waiting for cooking.

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As distinct from "Frozen’
 or worse - “thawed for your convenience” !!

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@phb Yep I know but they CAP the whole word, maybe using uncooked in a similar way could be come standard UNCOOKED or RAW but somehow I don’t think they will have the same mental pull as fresh conjures up in most people’s minds. Why I suggest it is Puffery, a claim that could be hard to disprove as well when they get asked what did you mean by “FRESH”

@evanstrish3 Frozen is probably better than so called FRESH, but yes the “thawed for your convenience” is hard to figure when it was thawed and how long has it been stored before placing it out for sale.

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Our local Coles seems to be on the ball with their handling of thawed out foods in the deli and always marks them down by up to 80% the day before they suggest is the use by date.

Aussie or US scallops, Aussie prawns, NZ calamari and their delicious chicken & mushroom pies.

The staff say you have to cook them that day or the following day and not to refreeze them but of course that is not correct so we always have cheap seafood in the freezer.

You are betting that the seafood was thawed correctly in a refrigerator, handled correctly and that the bacterial count is not too high. I hope you are right.

To me this is like eating raw meat dishes. Carpaccio and kibbeh nayeh require trust in the chef to use only the best meat and handle it correctly. This trust is in myself or a professional whose personal reputation is at steak but not in Colesworths shop assistants.

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For customers who like “50% off” - this makes customers have to think how much the reduction actually is. So it’s not helpful for customers who find "% mark downs helpful.

Can be confusing having so many prices on the one sticker.

Both should be on the sticker - “save 
” , “
 % off”.

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That’s a big but!

We can purchase fresh seafood from the waters edge, fresh caught and kept on ice. There is a noticeable difference depending on the catch, when compared with frozen product. The differences are in texture and taste. When only frozen product is available there are many uncooked seafood products we choose not to buy.

We don’t refreeze thawed products. Out of curiosity, under which conditions is it safe to do so? It’s odd that if it is OK to do so Woolies and Coles etc would not refreeze stock for future sale as frozen product. IE No risk when cooked on the second thaw at home by the consumer?

I prefer Woolies, because at least the bright orange colour of their markdown stickers can be seen from a distance. With Coles you have to be right on top of them :stuck_out_tongue:

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Worked for the big C. It was (at least when I worked there) standard procedure to ‘waste’ any of the frozen products that were not sold in their set time frames after defrosting. My presumption is that we could not assume when or how the shopper would cook the item, deeming it safe if cooked “right away”. (We had cases of people bringing back prawns saying they smelt off before finding out going “straight home” took them 3-4 hours after doing more shopping in the centre
)

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I can spot them from 20 metres away, especially in the meat department.

Whilst at our local Coles today, I grabbed a couple of packs of Huon Smoked Ocean Trout marked down from $9.00 to $6.30 each but 1 scanned at full price so I went to the service desk for my refund.

The free pack will taste even better than the marked down pack.

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