Coles website temporarily went offline after erroneous alcohol discounts of up to 80%
Australian supermarket chain Coles reported a technical problem with its website and mobile app after Reddit users drew attention to discounts of nearly 80% on 24-packs of alcoholic beverages. On Saturday, the company’s services were unavailable for several hours, later briefly resumed operation, and the website became unavailable again. At around 4:00 p.m. Eastern Australian time, the website began working again.
According to The Guardian World, on Friday an Australian Reddit account run by the creators of the price-monitoring website CW Scanner drew attention to the price of 24 330ml bottles of Jack Daniel’s & Cola. On the Coles website, the product, sold through its subsidiary Liquorland, was reduced from 130 to 27 Australian dollars. The discount was 103 Australian dollars, or just under 80%.
Later, CW Scanner’s creators noticed similar prices for other 24-packs of beer and ready-to-drink alcoholic beverages. Their cost was close to the price of promotional packs containing four or six units. According to CW Scanner, the Reddit post was viewed more than 180,000 times. Users reported that they managed to place orders at these prices, although these discounts were not available on the Liquorland website. Some later wrote that Coles had cancelled their orders.
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Coles said that some 24-packs of beer and ready-to-drink beverages had been incorrectly priced due to a technical error. The company said it had fixed the issue and was informing affected customers. Customers who had already been charged for these goods were promised refunds under the standard procedure.
CW Scanner identified at least 20 beer packs and 46 ready-to-drink beverage packs with such prices. The average discount on beer was about 49 Australian dollars, while the discount on other beverages was 111 Australian dollars. The largest discount was recorded for 24 cans of Smirnoff Crush Mango & Peach Zero Sugar: the price was reduced from 202 to 29 Australian dollars, a decrease of 173 Australian dollars. CW Scanner representatives suggested that the error could be related to artificial intelligence in Coles’ systems, but the company did not confirm this.
