Jodie Irwin is buying dishwashing liquid, laundry detergent and surface wipes from the Reject Shop in Glebe in inner Sydney. She’s looking for bargains during the cost-of-living crisis.
“Everything seems to be going up,” the 45-year-old says. “You have to save where you can.”
The carer from Glebe is willing to compromise regarding name brands – especially given the Reject Shop often changes its product lines.
Irwin tends to do the rest of her shopping at Aldi. “You can’t walk out of Coles with a small basket for anything less than $30,” she says.
In the latest Guardian Australia purchasing test, we bought four types of cleaning products from five shops. The categories were: Jif or equivalent cream cleaner and Windex or equivalent glass cleaner, dishwashing liquid and laundry powder.
The Sydney stores visited were: Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, Bunnings and the Reject Shop.
The test was conducted amid growing public scrutiny of Coles and Woolworths’ pricing strategies and skyrocketing profits. It followed similar purchasing tests focused on fruit and vegetables, meat and fish and dry goods.
Guardian Australia visited all of the shops on the same day.
Aldi provided the best value across the board, with buyers able to purchase the cheapest versions of the four target products in standard sizes. Jif equivalent was 40% cheaper than at Coles and Woolworths, and the Aldi window cleaner was a quarter of the cost of Windex at the big two supermarkets.
The findings were consistent with Choice research that suggested Aldi typically cost 25% less than Coles and Woolworths.
Bunnings and the Reject Shop undercut the major supermarkets when it came to the Jif and Windex brands. Windex was a third cheaper at the Reject Shop and nearly 60% cheaper when bought in bulk at Bunnings.
Coles, Woolworths and Aldi were the same price for their respective home-brand laundry powder and dishwashing liquid – with all three selling laundry powder for $1.25/kg and dishwashing liquid for $1.40/L.
Purchasing premium name-brand cleaning products in bulk from Bunnings was cheaper by the litre or kilogram than at the major supermarkets – if you can afford the upfront cost and have the space to store 5L dishwashing liquid bottles and 6kg laundry powder boxes, for example.
Coles and Woolworths charged $5.33 a litre for Palmolive ultra-strength dishwashing liquid while at Bunnings a 5L bottle was $4.40/L.
At Bunnings, a 6kg box of Omo Active Clean was $7.66/kg while at Coles and Woolworths 2L of the same laundry powder cost $14/kg.
Cuddly fabric softener at Bunnings was half the supermarket price – 5L was $10 compared with both Coles and Woolworths which charged $4/L.
Bunnings doesn’t, however, stock the cheaper home-brand dishwashing and laundry products.
At the Reject Shop, customer Reshma Ravichander is impressed by the bargains in her basket.
The 31-year-old chef has found cleaning products much cheaper than the nearby supermarket. She is visiting Sydney from a tiny town in the Northern Territory where the only shop sells a small range of basics at eye-watering mark-ups.
“Everything’s cheaper here. A tub of Vanish stain remover is $6.50 – it’s $23 where I live,” Ravichander says as she picks a bottle of Ajax from The Reject Shop in Glebe, where well-known household brands are sold for below-average prices.
“It’s the same product, you get a good selection and you save more than at Coles and Woolworths.”
Aris Veros, 50, a property manager from Sydney’s inner west, agrees. He looks for bargain name-brand products amid the cost-of-living crisis that he believes “is going to get worse”.
“The Reject Shop is always a good place to come to – there’s no difference in the products, just the cost.”
Cleaning products can also be purchased sustainably from stores such as Scoop and The Source – but they are more expensive than supermarket prices.
Both Scoop and The Source sell laundry liquid, fabric softener, floor cleaner and bathroom cleaner by the 100ml – allowing customers to fill bottles and tubs from home.
Not all cleaning products are created equally, of course, and cost is not always linked to effectiveness.
Consumer watchdog Choice runs tests across hundreds of household brands. Its top-rated laundry powder, Omo Ultimate, costs $16/kg.
However, Choice’s director of reviews and testing, Matthew Steen, says spending a lot of money on cleaning products isn’t necessary.
“If you have really dirty clothing, yes, I think it’s worthwhile saving up towards a more expensive detergent that will perform better,” he says.
But for less dirt-prone people – office workers and those without children – cheap will often cheerfully do the job. At times, the less expensive product is better, he says.
Choice’s dishwashing liquids test ranked Aldi’s Tandil Ultra Power Soak – which costs a quarter of other high-scoring products – in first place. Aldi’s Laundrite laundry powder scored only seven percentage points less than the winning Omo Ultimate, despite costing one-tenth as much per wash.
Steen suggests buying a product you trust when it is on special – or not at all.
“The marketers have had a field day,” he says of the various products being sold when often one will do multiple jobs. He uses watered-down dishwashing liquid for different cleaning tasks across the home.
Steen also cautions against buying in bulk if the product is likely to take years to use – because many ingredients decrease in effectiveness over time.
Some of the cheapest cleaners on the market aren’t sold as cleaning products. Cleaning vinegar – an age-old limescale remover – was $1.50/L at both Woolworths and Bunnings. Bicarbonate of soda – a drain unblocker, deodoriser, residue remover and scrub – was $3.50/kg at Coles.
Lynsey Crombie, the Instagram “queen of clean”, has a host of hacks that avoid harsh chemicals. She descales sinks with lemons, removes rust with ketchup, cleans tap bases with old stockings, degreases barbecues with half an onion and polishes shoes with banana peel.
“It’s your action that actually does that removal – it’s not the product itself,” Steen agrees. Elbow grease can often be the best bet.
When contacted about the purchasing test results, Woolworths said: “We’ve been clear in recent months that consumers are benefiting from the increased competition for popular grocery items such as cleaning products from non-supermarket retailers.”
Aldi told Guardian Australia: “As Australia’s most affordable supermarket, we are committed to providing everyday low prices across our entire range for customers.”
The Reject Shop said: “We know people are struggling with cost-of-living pressures. Our customers come to us for low-priced home essentials that represent tremendous value.”
Bunnings said it was focused “on providing customers with the lowest prices … including those looking for value through our bulk pack cleaning range”.
Comment was sought from Coles.
