So we’re being ripped off by $660m dollars a year by the banks. This cut to fees can’t come soon enough.
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Remember the days when airlines here charged CC fees ‘per passenger per sector’ which was $8.50. Still can’t believe they got away with that nonsense for as long as they did.
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If only they also cut the “transaction fee” from the ticketek and ticketmaster sites… 8 odd dollars, to do it myself. Grrrr!
There is nothing you can do, but click on it to purchase the tickets and add that fee.
Re the surcharge on card items. Good riddance. Although I never use it for the “everyday stuff” (coffee, milk, magazines etc), as I use cash, but for the bigger items, that surcharge is a bloody nuisance.
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Canberra furniture store Cusack’s has announced it will close its doors this October, after 108 years of trade.
The Reject Shop at Castle Towers in Sydney’s Castle Hills will close at the end of June.
I was shopping at Forest Hill Chase in Melbourne yesterday, and noticed that The Reject Shop inside the complex is being refitted after it was closed earlier this year for renovations.
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One of my local ones (Mittagong) recently moved locations and i noticed it looks more like a Dollarama on the inside. Clearly starting to shift towards the Dollarama brand.
Apparently the entire food court at Mandurah Forum, south of Perth is completely closing. All the reasoning / potential replacements I’ve seen are so far hearsay.
The food court has been a failure since the centre’s redevelopment in 2017.
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Apparently the Forest Hill store reopened last week.
Has any of the new Dollarama sourced stock arrived yet?
Apparently they are changing over the whole range (well eventually)
Bunnings will become the first major retailer in Australia to launch an agentic shopping assistant for customers. Bunnings will roll out ‘Buddy’ from this week, which it says will herald a “new generation of AI-powered shopping”.
Buddy will act as a “helpful team member online”, Bunnings said, guiding customers through projects, answering complex questions and helping them find what they need. Customers can type or take a photo of a handwritten list for Buddy to find the items and add them to their cart in seconds.
When you ask these so called assistants the trading hours of your local store and it doesn’t send you back the actual details it sends you to the store locator on the website forcing you to fill out the details again is not helpful. Until they fix those things I won’t be using it. Make sure the search on the site is very good I’m not going to ask an AI to do it for me.
Woolworths vs Woolworths Metro and Coles vs Coles Local.
I found that originally Woolworths Metro and Coles Local were a lot more expensive than Woolworths and Coles. But now, a lot of them have the same prices. If you go into the inner city suburbs though, they seem to be a lot more expensive.
I think they should have the same price as the regular Woolworths stores with the same specials. That might encourage the likes of IGA to compete. Their specials are very good but their normal prices are 10 to 20 per cent more. There is no reason for this they have about the same number of stores as Woolworths does Australia wide so they should be able to negotiate with wholesalers the same as Woolworths and Coles can to keep the prices down. Not to mention their terrible advertising can’t believable prices just encourage little kids to use words that don’t go together in proper English phrasing annoying their parents no doubt.
Mitre 10 has struck a delivery deal with DoorDash, allowing Aussies to order thousands of hardware items for same-day delivery to their site or home.
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Update on the KitKat chocolate heist - KitKat truck now travelling with armed escort.
A KitKat truck with 'presidential-level' protection was spotted in Canada, surrounded by four black SUVs with red flags
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) April 8, 2026
The stunt comes weeks after 12 tons of the bars were stolen pic.twitter.com/ekyZtGFPsd
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Transport for NSW data shows the average number of Opal users tapping on and off at North Sydney railway station has declined by more than half in just 18 months. Passenger counts from before the metro opened in 2024 showed 50,659 people passed through the station on a typical Tuesday. Later that year, 31,181 were arriving and departing from North Sydney, while 30,735 used the newly opened Victoria Cross. By this year, the gap had widened to 41,362 at Victoria Cross and 25,017 at North Sydney, data collected between February 17 and March 10 show.
With the decline in foot traffic, only 45 of the 60 shopfronts on Greenwood Plaza’s ground floor are now occupied by trading tenants, of which several are “pop-up” or outlet stores with limited opening hours. Half of what was the upstairs food court is blocked off by hoarding.
Recent exits include three Cotton On Group stores and Peter Alexander. Units previously tenanted by Baker’s Delight, Novo Shoes and L’Occitane, all of which have closed in the past six months, are also still vacant.
Legislation passed in 2024 forces about 80 per cent of NSW bottle shops to remain closed the entire day on April 25. Prior to last year, liquor retailers in NSW were able to trade from 1pm.
The NSW law prevents larger bottle shops from opening, including popular liquor chains. Small independent operators with four or fewer employees working on the day, and bottle shops attached to pubs are exempt from the restrictions.
Pubs and clubs, restaurants and cafes can all trade as normal.
Michael Waters, CEO of Retail Drinks Australia, said it’s a “kick in the guts” for businesses and every day Aussies who will likely end up paying more one way or another.
This year, businesses have been hit with a “double whammy”, Michael said, after the state government announced the public holiday on a Monday.
“If they want to trade, on the Monday following where Anzac Day falls on a Saturday or a Sunday, which happens periodically, they’re going to have to pay double time and a half penalty rates for the privilege,” he explained.
“They’re not going to make any money.”
The NSW government has justified the move, stating that new restrictions on trading hours are intended to “better represent the deep significance of Anzac Day” .