Fighting the Duopoly: Why We Need Tools Like CW Scanner
The grocery duopoly in this country has been driving me up the wall lately. Coles and Woolworths have such a stranglehold on the market that they can essentially charge whatever they want, and we’re left with little choice but to cop it sweet. So when someone recently shared a tool they’d built to help us fight back against this system, I was genuinely excited.
The tool is called CW Scanner, and it does something brilliantly simple: it compares prices between Coles and Woolworths in real time. You can scan a barcode or search for items, and it shows you which store has the better deal. What really impressed me is that it’s completely free – no ads, no paywalls, no sign-ups required unless you want to save shopping lists.
What struck me most about this initiative is how it highlights the absurdity of our grocery market. The creator mentioned that they figured “if the ACCC won’t help us out, we gotta help each other!” and honestly, that sentiment resonates deeply. We’ve been waiting for regulatory action on grocery prices for years, watching inquiry after inquiry produce reports that gather dust while our grocery bills keep climbing.
The responses from people trying the tool were telling too. One person found that “basically all of them were 50% off at one store or the other every fortnight.” This perfectly captures the psychological game these retailers are playing – they rotate their specials to create the illusion of value while keeping overall prices high. They’re banking on customer loyalty and the fact that most of us can’t be bothered checking both stores for every item.
This kind of grassroots solution reminds me of the community gardens that have been popping up around Melbourne’s inner suburbs. When the system fails us, we find ways to work around it. Just last week, I was at the Preston Market and overheard a conversation between two older women sharing which fruit shops had the best prices that day. It’s the same principle – collective knowledge as a form of resistance against corporate pricing strategies.
The environmental angle bothers me too. All this driving between stores to find the best deals creates unnecessary emissions. A tool that lets you plan your shopping more efficiently isn’t just saving money – it’s potentially reducing our carbon footprint by making fewer trips or more strategic ones.
What’s particularly clever about CW Scanner is the calculator feature that helps decode those confusing promotional offers. You know the ones – “3 for 2” versus “25% off” versus “buy 2, get the cheapest free.” These deliberately complex offers are designed to make price comparison difficult. Having a tool that cuts through that noise is genuinely helpful.
The cynic in me wonders how long it’ll be before the big retailers find ways to make this kind of price comparison harder. They’ve already made their APIs less accessible and their terms of service more restrictive. But for now, we have a small victory in the ongoing battle for fair grocery prices.
Tools like this represent something larger – they’re proof that when institutions fail to protect consumers, technology and community spirit can step into the breach. While we wait for meaningful regulatory reform of the grocery sector, at least we can arm ourselves with better information. Every dollar we save by making smarter shopping choices is a small act of rebellion against a system that too often treats us as captive customers rather than valued consumers.