Supermarket wars: Coles partners with eBay to drive online grocery shopping

Will you be making the most of this partnership? Images: Getty

Woolworths is generally considered the gold-standard when it comes to online grocery shopping, scoring five stars on Canstar.

But Coles is set to disrupt Woolworths’ stronghold.

The supermarket giant announced today that it is partnering with eBay to extend its online grocery shopping reach to eBay’s 11 million monthly visitors.

This means shoppers in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane will be able shop Coles’ perishable and non-perishable items on eBay, including fresh food, pantry and household items.

Critically, these items will cost the same on eBay as they do in store.

Previously, Coles online stumbled when it came to value for money. Canstar gave Coles only three stars for value for money, and a Fairfax investigation in 2016 found popular labels were often more expensive for online shoppers.

Coles explained on its online site that online prices were set at the prices in the store customers were ordering from. Products on eBay will be the same price as the national price.

Coles will allow deliveries to be dropped off even if no-one is at home and will expand delivery options throughout the year.

And customers will enjoy free delivery on orders over $49, provided they’ve subscribed to eBay’s membership program, while the first 5,000 shoppers will get 25 per cent off their first Coles on eBay order.

Coles ‘wants to make life easier’

“We are always looking for ways to make life easier for our customers,” said Coles online chief executive, Alister Jordan.

“By partnering with eBay, we are providing our customers another convenient way to access our products and have them delivered straight to their door.”

This is the first time eBay has entered such a partnership.

“Coles is one of Australia’s oldest and most trusted brands, so we’re excited to welcome them to eBay as they broaden their online channels,” said eBay Australian and New Zealand managing director, Tim MacKinnon.

“Both eBay and Coles share the vision of providing convenience, range and value to our customers and together we can make it even easier for Aussies to meet all their shopping needs in one place.”

Make your money work with Yahoo Finance’s daily newsletter. Sign up here and stay on top of the latest money, news and tech news.

Now read: Major changes for Telstra as it shuts 78 business centres

Now read: Facebook launches ‘highly anticipated’ dark mode to protect your eyes

Now read: Australia scores 96% on gender equality. Here’s the one thing we get wrong