Coles website crashes after viral Reddit post exposes 80% alcohol discount
Australian supermarket's site goes offline as shoppers rush to exploit a pricing glitch on premixed drinks.
What to know
- A nearly 80% discount on premixed alcoholic drinks at Coles went viral on Reddit, prompting widespread customer purchases.
- The surge in demand crashed Coles' website and app for several hours on Saturday, with multiple outage episodes.
- Some customers saved over $100 per transaction by exploiting the pricing glitch.
This is a humorous example of customers capitalizing on a corporate pricing error.
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“LOL… FAFO… Coles website down after viral Reddit post sees customers buy cases of alcoholic drinks at nearly 80% discount”
devopscats@toot.cat · Mastodon
“we're currently offline – but not for long”
Coles · Guardian Australia
Coles Australian supermarket chain
The record 2 articles and posts · last 30 days
What people are saying 3 voices from 3 sites · verbatim
- Aug 22
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Everybody does. You’ve never seen a transaction show up as ‘pending’ in your bank transaction list before?
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Supermarket’s website and app go offline as customers save more than $100 on some 24-packs
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LOL… FAFO… Coles website down after viral Reddit post sees customers buy cases of alcoholic drinks at nearly 80% discount https://www. theguardian.com/australia-news /2026/aug/22/coles-website-down-after-viral-reddit-post-sees-customers-buy-cases-of-alcoholic-drinks-at-nearly-80-discount