Coles Bakery Tip

Lconio on 17/03/2011 - 22:20

At my local Coles (Rhodes,NSW) I have found that after about 7pm most of the daily fresh baked stuff, donuts, cakes etc are reduced by 30-50% off the normal price. Last couple of times I've picked up either
- 6pack of iced donuts for $1 (50%off) or 10pack cinnamon coated $1 (40%off i think).

I assume this happens at other Coles with the bigger bakery sections ?

Whats available and quantities vary I guess on whats already been sold during the day.

Handy to know if you'r getting something else after work on the way home. :)

General Discussion

Comments

  • retiredfeline on 17/03/2011 - 22:25
    +1

    Good on you. It happens at a lot of places, not just Coles. Obviously you have found a good one where they overpredict their sales.

  • issh on 17/03/2011 - 22:25
    +3

    yeah happens alot

    happens to the bakery section as well as the bbq chicken

    • swimmingtoad on 17/03/2011 - 22:35
      +3

      yeh you can pick up some damn cheap roast chickens at night

    • conio on 17/03/2011 - 22:39
      +1

      cool to know about the bbq chickens as well.

  • kimba88 on 17/03/2011 - 23:24

    This surprises me. I work at coles and was told they no longer mark down their bread rolls because it costs more to pay someone to stand there and mark each one down individually. So they stopped marking them down and just throw them out now :-S

    But they still mark down donuts and cakes and what not. They either get reduced mid/late night or early morning.

    Bbq chickens you can usually pick them up at 8.30pm reduced (especially if the store closes at 10pm). It really depends on how long ago they came out of the oven.. Sometimes you can pick them up reduced a little earlier than 8.30pm.

    • retiredfeline on 17/03/2011 - 23:29
      +5

      That's silly and a waste of food. They should be kinder to students and other poor folk who need to save every cent. :( They don't need to mark each packet individually; all they need to do is put up a sign that says 50% off all baked goods or something like that. Or they could have preprinted 50% off stickers and slap them on the plastic bags.

      • Tal_Shiar on 17/03/2011 - 23:54
        +4

        Darryl Kerrigan left me a message for you, he said to say " tell him his dreamin"

      • AntMan76 on 19/03/2011 - 10:55
        +1

        They do need to mark each packet individually so the original barcode is covered and the new (discounted) price scans correctly.

        • Hintswen on 19/03/2011 - 21:27

          What they should do is change the price of the item the barcode refers to in the system, then they scan the same barcode and it comes up with the lower price.

        • AntMan76 on 20/03/2011 - 22:37

          The risk in doing that is that the price doesn't revert back to the original price and everything the next day (or at least a few hours till they find the problem) goes out at a highly reduced price.

  • samfisher5986 on 17/03/2011 - 23:52

    Coles & many woolworths stores have stopped doing what they used to do. You'll still see them marking it down occasionally when bread unusually doesn't sell well, but it will often only be a small saving anyway.

    The reason is all reducing does it create the need to reduce them in the future.

    1. People would go and buy a huge amount of bread as soon as it is reduced, preventing other customers from getting some. The fact that people would buy a lot would mean they wouldn't come back for a while and then do the same thing again.

    So if you are reducing bread like this, you can't know how much to make, and basically forces them to keep creating too much and then reducing it.

    1. Reducing bread every night means that customers quickly catch on and stop buying regular priced bread and wait for the reduced bread.

    So what would happen is everyone would go before closing time to pick up cheap chickens, bread etc.

    This just means a lot of lost sales as these customers would have paid full price.

    I actually pay full price now as I can't find any stores in Brisbane who are consistently reducing like they used to. I used to be one of those people who would almost exclusively go to the shop for the reduced chicken/bread/bakery stuff and then buy anything else if I was interested. Those were the good days…

    • mxyzptik on 18/03/2011 - 00:11
      +2

      Woolies went one step further a year or two ago and closed a lot of their "in-store' bakeries - which annoyed me for 2 reasons:

      a) I loved their fresh cream cakes & pavlovas;

      b) as the self-proclaimed "fresh food people" they were getting rid of the freshest things in the store … when you think about it … there's not much really fresh stuff there at all … even so much of the fruit, veg & dairy spends time in the cooler before it gets to the stores. Ironic.

      I don't think they even try pretending they're quite so fresh anymore … haven't heard the jingle recently. In the interests of accuracy, I think they should re-word it "the not-so-fresh food people"

      :)

      ps. Thanks for the tip, conio!

    • retiredfeline on 18/03/2011 - 00:13

      If they are reducing every night, then they are lousy at predicting sales and they should fix that.

      However if they reduce randomly when they have leftovers, they might actually get more people in the door who come in on the chance of getting a bargain on some things that would be thrown out anyway, and recover some of their cost, and maybe sell other stuff. If they reduce randomly, chances are those hopefuls would pay full price when no bargains are available.

  • Xanthorrhoea semipl… on 18/03/2011 - 00:29

    If you go to Coles or Woolies just before they close for the day, you can get a lot of cheap food cos they are all going to expire soon. The only drawback is that you have to consume the food in short time, otherwise it would 'go bad'.

  • Hintswen on 18/03/2011 - 01:02

    I love going to coles when it's late for the baked products :)

  • Ashlea on 18/03/2011 - 02:23

    Epping (VIC) Safeway: all single, unpacked baked goods in the case are reduced after 5pm, whether there's a sign or not. Keep that in mind for those who live in the area. :) Cakes & donuts are 95c and bread rolls are 50c.

  • me on 18/03/2011 - 08:21

    My local coles used to reduce all their bread products (breads, rolls, cakes, buns etc) to 50c after around 6pm - regardless of its starting price. It was really great! Though you'd see some people buying like half trolley loads (for what reason, I don't know, as you could always just return the next day for more).
    Then Today Tonight did a series of those stories on how to be cheap/save money at the supermarket (you know the ones where someone goes on saying they only buy things reduced/on special, never full price).
    Not long after the great 50c bread reduction stopped happening.
    Now they do pathetic reductions like "20% off" (which is like 50c or something)…

    • mxyzptik on 18/03/2011 - 09:22

      DAM!

      • llama on 18/03/2011 - 13:18
        +2

        BRIDGE!

    • em on 18/03/2011 - 14:58

      Yeah, it sucks :( When I worked in the deli at Coles we used to mark down quite a few chickens, over the years it became less and less and we just stopped cooking so many in the afternoon. Then policy came in that it's 10%, 33%, 66% markdowns. Before that we could just pick a price depending on how many were left.

  • lechuck123 on 18/03/2011 - 19:44
    +2

    Used to work at a Woolies store, i'd reduce the bread when it hit 6pm (8pm on a Thursday). Back then it was all just, make up a price and permanent marker it on a sticker. I'd never really care what price I put, so I reduced everything pretty cheap. I always knew it was too cheap when I'd get customers following me along the bread racks, grabbing everything I reduced.

    Now you put the percentage that you want to reduce the item in to the RF gun and it prints a ticket, so you don't get as many bargains.

    • randoom on 18/03/2011 - 21:38
      +5

      About printed reduction tickets, bargains (aka mistakes) can still happen! There's always the chance that someone makes a mistake like what happened to me: went to the deli at Woolies one night and they had crumbed chicken schnitzel for 50% off. I ordered 6 of them and realised the guy only charged for 1. Ordered 12 more and the same thing - paid for just 1 more. I think he was stoned/tired — he seemed very out of it.

      As a little bit of karma though, I got home to find there were only 11 in the pack of what should have been 12.

      • llama on 20/03/2011 - 10:47

        ROFL @ Karma HA HA HA HA HA

    • Feeblely on 20/03/2011 - 02:28

      opps wrong person

    • Feeblely on 20/03/2011 - 02:29

      LOLZ. I just laughed at this (leckhuck123). Thank you

  • morpheu on 18/03/2011 - 20:42

    except when you need some bread for yourself huh? let's see, regular discount+staff discount+late night discount=95%! lol!

    there are still some woolies where they will mark down their fresh bread to around 60cents on some nights, but it's random compared to the old days, and as for coles, i occasionally pickup meat/seafood for like 66% off but what really irks me is, you check the expiration/best by date, you go around closing time on that last day and they never reduce the food! so i believe by law they have to dump it all! what a waste! maybe someone here can explain to me, it is cheaper to get someone to throw away the food or to mark it down?

    • samfisher5986 on 18/03/2011 - 22:22

      At one of my local stores my friend works at, a lady came in 2mins before closing time and asked if they could reduce a hot chicken. They said no.

      2 minutes later it was in the bin and then she complained to customer service.

  • nubzy on 19/03/2011 - 10:45

    I was hoping this was going to be a tip on what time to find the hot donuts. Every time I go to coles they are stale :(. Once I got a pack and it was nice and soft though. Their donuts are great when fresh, very soft and only $1 for a whole pack of them!!

    • issh on 19/03/2011 - 11:26

      coles donuts > woolies donuts

      • samfisher5986 on 19/03/2011 - 15:22

        woolies donuts > coles donuts

        • Hintswen on 19/03/2011 - 21:27

          my donuts > your donuts

    • sparkles on 20/03/2011 - 08:45

      Donut King fresh donuts >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Coles or Wollies donuts

  • mxyzptik on 19/03/2011 - 22:33
    +2

    Donuts are big business* …. great donuts from the van at Melbourne's Vic Market.

    *One day, a few years ago, after waiting for a minute behind four people to get my 6 donuts as I ate them I watched the queue … never a gap … serving 4 people a minute x $5 a bag … = $20 a minute … $1,200 an hour … $7,200 a six hour day …

    … almost no costs: flour, water, paper bags running the van … girls to serve … his daughters?

    I mentioned it to a guy who has a business there … he said the donut man had just given his ex $4million in a divorce settlement (sounds like she got dudded!)

    His donuts win hands down.

    • issh on 20/03/2011 - 10:28

      *One day, a few years ago, after waiting for a minute behind four people to get my 6 donuts as I ate them I watched the queue … never a gap … serving 4 people a minute x $5 a bag … = $20 a minute … $1,200 an hour … $7,200 a six hour day

      wow that's a really good business
      low cost + high revenue= high profit

      • mxyzptik on 20/03/2011 - 10:34
        +1

        Yes … its all about location in that business … he must have good "connections" ;)

  • nubzy on 20/03/2011 - 20:36

    wouldnt mind getting into that business myself! buy a cheap van and start making donuts..

  • mxyzptik on 20/03/2011 - 20:40
    +1

    yep, hot sugar-coated jam ones :)

    …. you just need a good spot to sell 'em :)

    • Tal_Shiar on 21/03/2011 - 00:01

      backseat of the car, smokin hot jam, burnt tongue…good times lol

    • Tal_Shiar on 21/03/2011 - 00:01
      +1

      backseat of the car, smokin hot jam, burnt tongue…good times lol

  • Craze on 20/03/2011 - 22:18

    I also noticed the markdown trend hasn't been as good as before. 2 years ago I remember going to a Coles before Good Friday and all their breads were reduced to 50c (regardless of original price), but the discounts had only been 10-33% of late, and 66% if it's expiring the next day. Can't believe they'd rather throw food into the bins then reduce the prices cause it's costing them more to hire someone to do that!

  • beejay1177 on 23/03/2011 - 15:27

    My local Woolies always reduced the bakery goods by at least $1 most nights. Don't see any reduced chickens anymore as it seems that now they glad-wrap them up and sell them cold for a few $ less. I did pick up an excellent bargain this morning though - premade chilli con-carne beef for 0.59c!

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join