What day do supermarket specials change in Australia?
Wednesday — mostly. When Coles, Woolworths, ALDI and IGA reset their prices each week, and how to time your shop around it.
If you've ever watched a half-price ticket vanish the day before payday, you've met the specials cycle. Australia's supermarkets reset their weekly specials on a fixed rhythm — and once you know it, you can time your shop instead of gambling on it. The short answer: Wednesday. Here's the longer one.
The weekly rhythm, chain by chain
- Coles — weekly specials run Wednesday to Tuesday. The new catalogue goes live Wednesday morning, in store and online.
- Woolworths — same cycle: new specials each Wednesday, ending the following Tuesday.
- ALDI — groceries are everyday-low rather than weekly-cycled, but Special Buys land Wednesday and Saturday mornings.
- IGA — weekly catalogues typically also flip mid-week, though independents vary a little store to store.
So Tuesday night is when this week's prices die, and Wednesday morning is when roughly ten thousand new specials appear at once.
How to use the cycle
Shop Wednesday or Thursday if you're chasing the new week's half-price lines — the popular ones (coffee, chocolate, laundry liquid) can be gone by the weekend. Shop Tuesday if something you buy weekly is on special and you want one last basket of it before the reset. And for the pantry staples you always buy: when a genuine half-price week comes around, that's the week to buy six, not one.
The catch: nobody can watch every reset
Ten thousand prices changing every Wednesday is exactly the kind of job you shouldn't do by hand. Mai Pantry tracks the reset for you: search any product and see this week's price at Coles, Woolworths, ALDI, IGA and Spudshed side by side, or hand it your whole list and let it find the cheapest trip for the week.