A half-price ticket is a saving only if the crossed-out price is what you would otherwise have paid. There are two reasons it might not be, and they are not the same kind of problem.
One is illegal, and a supermarket has just been found to have done it. On 14 May 2026 the Federal Court found that Coles misled shoppers with its "Down Down" tickets.
The other is entirely legal, far more common, and the one that quietly costs you more: a product discounted so regularly that the "regular" price is the exception rather than the rule. Measured across our own price records, the typical product carrying a half-price ticket at Coles and Woolworths had already been through several separate discounts in the previous six months — roughly one every three weeks.
Here is how to tell the two apart, and what to do about each.
What the court actually found
The ACCC sued both major chains in September 2024. The alleged pattern was specific: a product sat at a regular price for at least six months, often a year or more; the price then rose by at least 15 per cent for a brief period; then the product went into a promotion at a price higher than, or the same as, the regular price before the spike. The case covered 245 Coles products and 266 Woolworths products.
In ACCC v Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd [2026] FCA 598, Justice O'Bryan found Coles had made misleading representations in 13 of the 14 tickets considered at the liability hearing, in breach of ss 18 and 29(1)(i) of the Australian Consumer Law.
The reasoning is the useful part. The Court's question was whether the "was" price had been the real price for long enough that a discount from it meant anything. Coles' own internal policy had once required a minimum twelve-week period at the "was" price, and was later relaxed to four weeks. Four weeks was not enough.
Twelve weeks is not a rule. The Court was explicit that what counts as a reasonable period depends on the product and the context, and legal analysts have been at pains to say the same. It is a useful yardstick for packaged groceries, not a line in a statute.
Two things have not happened yet: penalties against Coles, which the Court will determine later, and judgment in the separate Woolworths proceedings, which remain before the Court. Nothing here is a finding against Woolworths.
The legal version of the same problem
Now the part no court is going to fix for you.
Imagine a product that costs $6.20 most weeks and $3.10 every third week. Every $3.10 ticket is honest. The $6.20 was genuinely charged. No price was inflated to manufacture a discount, and nobody has broken any law.
But "half price" implies you are catching something unusual, and you are not. If you buy at $6.20 you have simply shopped on the wrong week — and the ticket gives you no way to know that, because it shows you one price and one moment.
Here is what our own price records show.
3,373 Coles and Woolworths listings carried a half-price ticket when we last checked. These figures cover the 2,758 of them we had been tracking long enough to measure across the previous 180 days.
- 29.2%
- of the past six months spent at the discounted price, for the median product
- 6
- separate discounts in six months, for the median product
- 21 days
- typical gap from one discount to the next
- 85.3%
- were discounted three or more times in the window
Grovena’s own data, updated with each price collection — figures as at 27 September 2026. Each product is measured against its own advertised “was” price, counting the time it sat at or below that discounted level. Counts only listings we were already tracking before the window opened, so a product listed last week cannot skew the result. Prices are collected from each retailer’s website rather than from in-store tickets. Aldi publishes no “was” price on any listing we hold, so it makes no was/now claim to measure.
What these figures measure is cycling — how often a price drops to a discounted level and climbs back. That is a different thing from raising a price in order to discount it — the conduct the ACCC alleged, and the one that is unlawful. Our records are not evidence of that, we are not suggesting it is widespread, and in Woolworths' case the question is still with the Court.
Aldi does not appear here, because Aldi does not make the claim this article is about. Not one Aldi listing we hold carries a "was" price — the field is on every line we collect, and Aldi never fills it. No was/now comparison, nothing to check.
Aldi still drops prices, weekly, through its catalogue. It just does not sell those reductions to you as a discount off a former price. Which leaves the only question worth asking there anyway: is its ordinary price lower than the other two on the item in your hand?
The three questions that settle it
The ticket in front of you cannot tell you whether the discount is real, because the information that decides it is the price history, and the ticket shows a single moment. So ask:
| Question | What a good answer looks like |
|---|---|
| How long has the "was" price been the price? | Months, not a few weeks. A "was" that appeared recently is the weakest kind. |
| How often does this product go on special? | If it discounts every few weeks, the special is the normal price and there is no urgency. |
| Is it cheaper at another chain right now, even at full price? | Frequently yes — a half-price ticket at one chain can still lose to another chain's everyday price. |
That third one catches people out constantly. A 50% discount is a comparison against that retailer's own former price, not against the market. It is perfectly possible to buy a genuinely half-price product and still overpay.
You can settle that one for free. Check what the other chains charge — each card carries the retailers we hold a matched price for, with the unit price beside each one wherever the retailer publishes it, so a 900g pack can be judged against a 1kg one. The catalogues do not line up item for item, so some products carry all three prices and many carry two. No account needed.
Answering the first two questions
The first two questions need something the shelf cannot give you: the same product's price over months.
That is what a price history chart is for, and it is worth being precise about what it changes. Seeing a line rather than a number tells you three things a ticket cannot. Whether today's price is near the bottom of its range or the top. Whether the "was" price is a level the product genuinely sits at, or a number it touches briefly between specials. And how often the discount comes back — which is the difference between buying one now and buying two, and between waiting a fortnight and not bothering.
Full price history charts are part of Grovena Pro, at $5.99 a month, along with weekly price-drop alert emails so a staple you rebuy tells you when it moves instead of you checking.
There is a faster way in than typing the name, and it matters here because this is a question you have while holding the product: Pro reads the barcode and goes straight to that item's prices, specials and history.
Two things to know before you pay for it. It runs on your phone rather than on a computer. And barcode coverage is not even across the three chains: we hold one for the overwhelming majority of the Coles and Woolworths range, and far fewer of Aldi's, so a scanned Aldi product may not resolve yet. We add them as we identify them.
All of it is built around the twenty or so things you buy on repeat, because that is where a pattern exists to find. A single purchase has none — and the free comparison already answers that one.
What is changing, slowly
The ACCC's supermarkets inquiry reported in March 2025 with 20 recommendations, and Recommendation 4 goes directly to this: "Supermarkets should be subject to minimum information requirements for discount price promotions, supported by record keeping obligations."
In plain terms, the regulator's own view is that a discount ticket should have to tell you more than it does today. That has not been implemented, and until it is, the burden of checking sits with you.
It is worth reading alongside the excessive pricing prohibition that started on 1 July 2026, which is a different law aimed at a different problem — prices that are too high in absolute terms, rather than discounts that misrepresent what they are.
Common questions
Are half-price specials at Coles and Woolworths real?
Usually the discount itself is real, in the sense that the product genuinely costs less that week than it did the week before. Whether it is a saving depends on how often that happens. A product discounted every few weeks has a "regular" price you rarely need to pay.
Did Coles lose the ACCC case?
Yes. On 14 May 2026 the Federal Court found Coles made misleading representations in 13 of the 14 "Down Down" tickets considered at the liability hearing, breaching ss 18 and 29(1)(i) of the Australian Consumer Law. Penalties will be decided later.
What about Woolworths?
The ACCC brought a separate case over "Prices Dropped" tickets covering 266 products. Those proceedings are still before the Court and no findings have been made. The allegations against Woolworths are allegations.
How long does a "was" price have to be the real price?
There is no fixed period in the legislation. In the Coles case the Court found four weeks was not a reasonable period for packaged groceries and treated twelve weeks as the relevant benchmark, drawing on Coles' own earlier internal policy — while making clear it is not a rigid rule and depends on the product.
Is a half-price product always the cheapest option?
No. The discount compares a product against that retailer's own earlier price, not against other supermarkets. Another chain's ordinary price can beat a half-price ticket, which is why comparing across chains and checking the unit price matters more than the size of the discount.
The short version
A court has now confirmed that a "was" price has to have been the real price for a reasonable period, and found Coles' tickets misleading. Woolworths' case is still running.
The bigger everyday issue is legal: prices that cycle often enough that the discount is the normal state. Our records put the typical half-price product at several separate discounts across six months, about three weeks apart — and the overwhelming majority were discounted at least three times in that window.
The ticket cannot tell you which situation you are in. Check what it costs at each chain before you decide the discount is worth taking.