The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has granted Coles Express franchisees a limited concession on how roadside fuel price boards may be updated, backing away from a draft rule that would have required daily price resets at every site regardless of trading patterns.
Under the compromise circulated to franchise advisory councils on Friday, sites may display a weekly average for each grade on the main board while still publishing intraday changes inside the store and on the chain's fuel-finder app. The regulator said the change recognises that many express sites on arterial roads lack staff to alter physical digits multiple times a day when wholesale terminals move on Singapore gasoil benchmarks.
What franchisees argued
The Motor Traders' Association and the franchisee council told the ACCC that mandatory daily board updates would have pushed compliance costs onto small operators already squeezed by card fees and wage awards. They pointed to independent servos in regional New South Wales that change boards manually and sometimes lag metro price cycles by a full day without misleading consumers who compare prices on apps.
ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said the watchdog would still treat app and website prices as the authoritative offer at the bowser. "A static board cannot excuse a higher price at the pump," she said in a letter to franchisees. Investigators will continue random audits comparing board, app and terminal receipts.
Consumer groups push back
CHOICE and the Australian Automobile Association said averaging could blur the sharp end of price cycles when retailers lift margins before public holidays. They want time-stamped digital boards at large sites, a requirement the ACCC left for a second consultation round in 2027.
Woolworths-backed EG Ampol and Viva Energy were not party to the Coles-specific undertaking but will watch whether the concession becomes an industry-wide template. EG Ampol already pushes prices to its FuelCheck feed hourly in New South Wales under state law.
Politics and the long weekend
With the October long weekend starting in several states, ministers had urged the ACCC to avoid rule changes that might confuse drivers. Assistant Competition Minister Andrew Leigh welcomed the staged approach, saying transparency tools should not bankrupt franchisees.
Franchisees said they would trial the weekly-average boards from November at 120 sites in Queensland and Victoria before a national rollout. Coles Group shares were untraded on Sunday; fuel retailing contributes a single-digit slice of group earnings but remains politically sensitive whenever pump prices climb.
The ACCC will report in March on whether the concession reduced complaints to its petrol inbox, which ran above 3,000 messages in the June quarter.
Terminal economics
Wholesale diesel in Singapore rose through September on tighter middle-distillate inventories, and Australian importers pass those moves through with a lag. Franchisees said the ACCC concession lets them display a smoothed board price while still matching terminal gates on the day fuel trucks arrive. Independent analysts at FuelTrac estimate eastern states margins widened two cents a litre in the final week of September before the long weekend rush.
Coles Group told the ASX its express network sources from multiple refiners and import terminals, reducing exposure to any single outage. That diversification mattered when Lytton refinery maintenance tightened Brisbane supply in August. Franchise advisory minutes released to members show support for the compromise at 78% in an online poll, though dissenters in Tasmania wanted daily boards retained for tourist corridors.
Consumer advocates will test the undertaking by mystery-shopping sites in Wollongong and Geelong during the October holiday, comparing app prices with pump receipts. Failure rates above 5% could trigger penalties under the existing petrol information code.