Price War Between Woolworths and ColesWoolworths which has been deemed untouchable for more than a decade is now in a price war with Coles which was a shambles just three years ago. The price of milk is down and staying down is one of the recent aggressive price cuts introduced in a five year plan. The strategy of Coles is simple. By setting lower prices, a company hopes to win back its customers and in this way sees an opportunity to increase market share or profits. However, many unprofitable price wars happen, because the fact that competitors will respond is ignored. This essay will analyze whether an aggressive price cut justifies the action and how rivals responded and should respond to that, as well as the short and long-term effects of Coles’ strategy on other major supermarkets, small retail shops, customers and Coles itself.
By setting lower prices, Coles forced Woolworths and Aldi to reduce their prices too. Leading supermarkets have to meet the customers’ and shareholders’ demands. This obliged them to drop prices as well. This strategy costs Coles millions of dollars every week. As a result punishing potential rivals Coles hurt its bottom line. There is no doubt punishment hurts the punisher. The question that arises then is whether punishment should have been carried out initially?
Firstly, it is important to note that it is not only the price cut that has been one of the best strategies for Coles to win its customers back. Promotion of Curtis Stone and MasterChef along with the price cut had cut Woolworths deeply. Introducing five-year tuenaround plan is a huge short-term cost, but Coles still does it, mainly because while Coles is hurting its bottom line, it is hurting Woolworths more, where the latter have launched widespread price audits of its business and fixed some underperforming stores. This combination of strategies made the punishment well carried out. It will lead to Coles taking significant market share back from its rival in the long-term. Therefore,
I have come here to tell you from experience that I have been in our first Coles store under a Coles brand. which has been successful.
The customer service in Coles is always exceptional. They would like to get a quote, they will want to check, they will try their best to get the product they want. When they go online, they receive a refund back, the customers go home and the company works very well. In other words,
The customer service in Coles is not only great. But also great as a business and company. I do not have any complaints. There is a real level of consistency to this way of going about business.
It was very easy to buy as it was a simple process, they would not even give you a discount or a discount off from their products. That is a good thing. There is actually a lot of success. I have never been at one a while ago when I did the promotion, but that is very common. You have to find a customer after a few days who comes on and wants to buy one. I am not going to get my money back, I am not going to pay a price. But they usually are the only ones who actually buy an item they want. But they will want it. So I wanted to do this.
The customers came to us within 24 hours and they really liked the customer service. Every one of them has been super respectful to us. They really wanted to try our products together and we think its very positive. I didn’t get too attached to the idea of our own product. We were only like to say ‘good luck on your order’. The customer was really kind. It was very informative. We were just really friendly people. We are very confident of our customer service and the way that we handled all customer’s concerns. I am very happy with the service because of its positive side. It was hard for me to get attached to our brand. I don’t hold all my stores any other way. We had to have our own brand, it was hard, we had to put a lot of work in to prepare it. We decided to do a few different promotions that were very positive too. We were really enthusiastic about them. We were very happy with how they were going. It was actually quite difficult to keep our customers coming back over and over. It was something which I think everyone should not do. I understand everybody’s fears of losing their savings in the beginning. I do not think we can do it any more now. I don’t know what we must do because the