The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has recently received several notifications* from BP Australia and 35 BP-branded service stations advising that they, in conjunction with Action Supermarkets, have began a 'shopper docket' promotion similar to those currently offered by Woolworths/Caltex and Coles/Shell.
The ACCC has decided to allow the BP notifications to stand.
The promotion offered by BP and Action provides consumers with a discount of 4.0 cents per litre off the price of petrol products from all BP service stations in New South Wales and Queensland once they have purchased at least $30 worth of groceries from a participating Action supermarket.
Earlier this year, the ACCC conducted an extensive review of the tying of petrol discounts to grocery sales by both Coles Myer Ltd and Woolworths Limited. On 6 February 2004, the ACCC issued a report* in which it concluded that the introduction of shopper docket schemes encouraged competition which resulted in lower prices in the fuel market.
Since the time of issuing its report the ACCC has received a further 21 notifications which have come largely from independent or single stand alone sites.
In support of its notification, BP argued, and the ACCC agrees, that their shopper docket promotion scheme is a pro-competitive response to other petrol discount schemes and therefore, consistent with its earlier decisions, the ACCC has decided not to revoke the notifications. The ACCC considers that there are benefits for consumers from shopper docket discounts and that offers of this sort drive competition between the different alignments of supermarkets/petrol retailers.