SUPERMARKET price check websites are unclear and don't go far enough, says FRANK ZUMBO
The launch of the Woolworths price check website is a long overdue recognition by the supermarket giant that consumers deserve greater price transparency on grocery products.
The website follows the growing calls from consumer advocates for the major supermarket chains to publish online the prices of all products they sell.
Publishing comprehensive pricing information on websites has long been technically feasible and now that the Woolworths website is up and running, it is essential it that is as informative and user-friendly as possible.
Sadly for consumers, the website leaves a lot to be desired.
From the outset, consumers are confronted with a legal minefield, with Woolworths requiring consumers to accept the so-called price check terms and conditions before accessing information.
Having a law degree or needing to obtain legal advice should not be a pre-requisite for using the website.
For example, the price check terms and conditions state that the information on the website cannot be printed.
Does this mean consumers are not allowed to print any of the pages on the website?
Consumers are even told they cannot provide any information on the website to any other person.
Does this prevent a consumer from writing down the information for a relative or friend?
The price check terms and conditions raise a host of legal questions and can give rise to a range of unintended consequences.
Once past the legal fine print, consumers are given pricing information on only 5000 out of the 30,000 or more grocery items typically sold in a Woolworths supermarket.
The pricing information on the website is only a fraction of what Woolworths can, and should be, providing to consumers.
Until it includes the prices of all products in each of its supermarkets, consumers will not be getting the full picture.
If it's technically feasible for Woolworths to publish on its website the prices of 5000 products, then it's surely technically feasible to publish the prices of all 30,000 or more products.
Even in publishing the prices of 5000 items, Woolworths could do much more to make the website as user-friendly as possible.
One obvious suggestion is to allow consumers to create a basket or shopping list of products while navigating the website.
Consumers should be able to select products that can be placed in a virtual basket or shopping list to print out and take with them to the supermarket.
They could then mark off the products on the printed shopping list as they go along. Cost-conscious consumers could even take such a shopping list along when shopping at, say, a Coles or independent supermarket to see if they could get the products at a lower price.
Another omission from the Woolworths website is the full list of the 3500 grocery items it states have been reduced in the past year.
Consumers deserve to see a full list of the 3500 products and details of how much each has been reduced.
More importantly, consumers need to know of any price increases on any of the other 26,500 products typically sold by a Woolworths supermarket.
Unless consumers get full transparency on all prices across the whole product range, they won't be able to determine whether they are better off overall under Woolworths' pricing announcements.
With the Woolworths website having a long way to go, the onus is now clearly on the company to keep improving it to a point where it gives consumers full price transparency in a manner that allows them to make the most of the pricing information.
Full pricing transparency from Woolworths, however, is only part of the picture.
With Woolworths now publishing an expanded range of prices on its website, it's essential that Coles moves quickly to also publish its grocery prices online. The ball is in Coles' court to do better and publish on its website a full list of products and prices at each of its supermarkets.
- Associate Prof Frank Zumbo is a competition and consumer law expert at the University of NSW.
