'The enshittification continues': Coles shopper fuming over bag swap

An Aussie went on a public rant after a shocking experience, which saw them spending more than they’d planned to on bags.

Cassidy Pearce

2 min read

June 12, 2025 - 9:13AM

Lifestyle

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Let’s be real, you’d be lying if you said you’d never had a whinge about bags at supermarkets.

The more durable ones are too expensive, the designer ones too bougie, the cheaper ones fall apart, and some of them aren’t even made in Australia. The whole thing feels very Goldilocks.

Now, the issue is that the bags are too small - though if it weren’t for the price, it may not have been an issue at all.

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Image: Reddit.

“Half the bag, twice the price!”

An Aussie Reddit user has taken to the platform after a shocking experience at Coles, which saw them end up spending more than they’d planned to on bags.

“Half the bag, twice the price!” they wrote.

“Local Coles ran out of regular bags, decided to use these half sized bags and charge the exact same amount.

“The enshittification continues.”

“What can you even carry with that?”

Fellow Coles shoppers in the comments thought the bags were ridiculous, regardless of the price.

“What can you even carry with that half-arsed bag? 2 carrots?” one person said.

“That’s about it. Funny times when they put a 3ltr milk and canned food in those,” another added.

Others pointed out that the bags really do have a purpose generally for online orders - though the shopper shouldn’t have had to pay for them.

“The shorter bags are used for online orders as they fit better in the crate things. I guess they decided that offering them was better than having no bags available,” one person pointed out.

“Yeah it’s a bit cheeky they charged the same or in the bigger picture charge in general, but it is also an avoidable cost. Understandably everyone forgets their bags sometimes but then it just becomes a convenience fee of sorts.”

“Not to defend Coles too much or anything but there is a purpose for these - they fit perfectly inside the crates the delivery drivers use. A driver told me when they switched over to the paper from plastic that folding the paper bags over didn’t really work and they couldn’t stack the crates properly, so the small bags were the solution,” another agreed.

“While the paper bags available in-store remain unchanged…”

In a statement to Kidspot, a Coles spokesperson noted that this seemed to be an isolated incident, with the shorter bags used exclusively for online orders - and not intended to be on sale for customers shopping in store.

However, they assured that the Coles Online paper bags are capable of carrying the same weight as the in-store version.

“Following a successful trial, we made the decision at the start of last year to transition to a shorter paper bag for all online deliveries. While the paper bags available in-store remain unchanged, the new Coles Online version fit more easily into packing crates, which will lead to less damage and improved reuse,” the spokesperson said.

“Like the in-store paper bag, the Coles Online version has undergone vigorous independently testing and found to safely hold up the same 6 kilos of groceries. All of our paper bags can be reused multiple times and are made from 100% recycled paper that, unlike soft plastic bags, can be recycled kerbside.”