Care To Comment On ‘No Reason To Kill GroceryChoice’?
Let’s Actually DISCUSS Desal Plants…And OTHER Big Projects?
August 24, 2009An Inspirational Gathering of Social Entrepreneurs…
August 27, 2009A reader has alerted us to Choice Magazine’s passionate response from CEO Nick Stace to the decision of Craig Emerson, the Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affair’s to pull the grocery price comparison site – GroceryChoice – five days before it was due to launch.
What Nick Stace Has To Say
Choice Magazine is encouraging people to comment in their ‘Your Experience: Have Your Say’ section. You have to scroll right to the bottom of the comments already there to do this!
What Choice Magazine Is Saying Online
“The GroceryChoice website due to launch 1 July was ready, timely and accurate.
Five days before launching the new improved GroceryChoice site the Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs Craig Emerson has met with the big three supermarkets and decided that price transparency doesn’t work for them. CHOICE was informed about the decision after the industry and the media were fully briefed.
This is the first significant decision by the consumer minister since taking office and overturns a Government promise to support greater transparency in consumer pricing through GroceryChoice.
Within days consumers would have had access to timely and accurate information across the leading supermarket chains on which to base their purchasing decisions. This has been a remarkable achievement given that of the big supermarkets, only Aldi and FoodWorks were brave enough to support the project.
CHOICE chief executive Nick Stace said “I am shocked and disappointed at the decision by the consumer minister to side with supermarkets rather than consumers. Supermarket prices are higher in Australia than many other developed countries and CHOICE agreed to deliver GroceryChoice because we believed we could make a difference for consumers.
“In five days’ time the start of a revolution in supermarkets was about to begin with consumers given up-to-date information on 1000 products, rising to 5000 within weeks. To pull the site five days before launch shows that we were on the money and the supermarkets are worried about losing out to consumer demands.
“This is a bad day for consumers but a day that makes CHOICE more determined than ever to campaign with consumers for a more competitive grocery sector and lower prices.
“The minister’s suggestion of an industry-based website to provide grocery price data is like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank.”
Another issue that should be discussed.
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And while your mind is on supermarkets…. Choice’s ‘More Competition In the Supermarket Sector’ Campaign is running a survey about supermarket shopping habits. Click here to help by taking the survey (about 5 minutes).
1 Comment
The excuses provided by the supermarkets for not being able to comply with the demands of the GroceryChoice site were ridiculous! If they cannot provide up-to-date information from supermarkets when prices change, then how are they managing to keep in-store prices in sync with the tills in-store??
I have been tracking grocery prices from the big two chains for years at grocery.bestpricedirectory.com.au and have literally thousands of products being updated twice each week.