Federal Court rules Coles Down Down prices misleading

A Federal Court judge ruled Thursday that supermarket giant Coles misled customers through its Down Down pricing campaign, finding 13 of 14 examined product promotions illusory because the items had not been sold at the advertised "was" price for a reasonable period.

Justice Michael O'Bryan delivered the decision in Melbourne, concluding a case brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. The regulator alleged Coles artificially inflated prices briefly before reducing them slightly and marketing the new price as a discount. The judge agreed that, for the misleading tickets, the discounts were not genuine. "The vast majority of ordinary consumers, when shopping, would not have formed any conscious belief about the period for which the product had been offered for sale by Coles beyond an intuitive sense the discount being promoted was genuine and not artificial," O'Bryan wrote.

One exception was a can of Natures Gift dog food, which lacked a "was" price on its ticket and thus was not misleading. Examples of violations included a jar of Coles brand quince paste, raised from $3 to $4.50 for four weeks before dropping to $3.15, and the dog food, which sold at $4 for...