Coles Express

Coles Express is an Australian chain of fuel and convenience stores. The business venture and corresponding fuel discount offer was launched in July 2003 in response to the similar offer by rival Woolworths Limited some years earlier, proving attractive to shoppers.

Wesfarmers (then Coles Myer) purchased the rights to the business from the existing Shell Australia multi-site franchisees in 2003 for an amount less than A$100 million. Coles Express' only affiliation with Shell is that Shell is the exclusive supplier of fuel products, leases the service station property to Coles, and maintains the presence of the "pecten" and other Shell branding on the price board and other signage.

Some Shell-branded service stations, particularly in country areas, remain unassociated with Coles Express.

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The Coles and Shell alliance

The Coles Group and Shell commercial alliance involves:

Coles Group (Eureka Operations Pty Ltd trading as Coles Express):

• Setting fuel and shop prices and running the business
• Management under the 'everyday needs' business within Coles Group
• Convenience and grocery merchandise provided by Coles Group's supply chain and distribution network
• Directly employing the service station staff

Shell:

• Exclusive supplier of fuel, oil, lubricant and car-care products
• Leases the service station property to Coles
• Maintain its "pecten" and other Shell branding on site signage

Fuel discount offer

Everyday offer

When a customer spends over a qualifying amount (typically $30) in one transaction at Coles Supermarkets, Bi-Lo, Coles Central, Pick 'n Pay Hypermarkets, Liquorland, or online at Coles Online or Shopfast, they are entitled to a fuel discount of 4c per litre off the bowser price at Coles Express service stations. This discount is obtained by providing a discount voucher, printed at the bottom of their receipt, and includes all of Shell's "quality fuels" such as V-Power, V-Power Racing, E10 and LPG.

On 7 June 2007, Kmart joined the 4c fuel discount offer, only as a "limited time" until 1 August when it became permanent. This offer does not include Kmart Tyre and Auto Service transactions.

The discount offer does not apply to Shell Card, Fleet Card, Motorpass or Motorcharge transactions.

Bonus offers

An additional "bonus" discount was introduced in late 2006, with a further 2c per litre fuel discount when customers spend $2 in-store in the one transaction. The offer was made permanent in April 2007 after rival Caltex Woolworths created a similar offer of an additional 4c discount if customers spend $5 in the one transaction at their petrol stations.

Other variations of the fuel offer have been offered from time to time including:

• In the lead-up to Christmas 2006, the 4c offer increased to 10c for customers spending $80 and over in one transaction at Coles Supermarkets; this offer was extended for a further short time in attempt to boost Coles' sales figures.
• Occasionally Liquorland offers a 20c-per-litre discount offer when customers purchase six bottles of wine in one transaction.
• Kmart Tyre and Auto Service has offered a 30c-per-litre discount offer when customers purchased four certain tyres in one transaction.

Even during these bonus offer, the Coles Express price board will always promote just a "4c" offer, due to technical limitations.

History

  The Coles Express brand originally referred to a small number of medium-sized supermarkets Coles ran in the central business districts of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. With the launch of Coles' fuel offer, these were rebranded Coles Central.

The current Coles Express chain started at more than 150 service stations in Victoria in July 2003, and was followed by a national roll-out completed in mid-2004. There are now over 602 Coles Express service stations across Australia.^[1]

All former Shell multi-site franchisee sites became Coles Express stores. This transition included the petrol stations and stand-alone convenience stores in Melbourne's CBD (which have been closed as of December 2006).

In 2006, many servicing bays at Coles Express service stations (formerly part of Shell's AutoCare network) became Kmart Tyre and Auto Service outlets.

References