Alcohol Pricing and Discounting in Western Australia: Identifying Products Below Hypothetical Minimum Unit Prices.

Introduction: Minimum unit pricing (MUP), which involves setting a floor price for alcoholic beverages based on their alcohol content, has been shown to reduce alcohol-related harms. This study identified alcoholic beverages in Western Australia that may be affected by three minimum unit price thresholds.

Methods: In September 2024, we web-scraped product information for 16,645 alcoholic beverages listed on the online stores of two major alcohol retail chains in Perth, Australia. We identified the proportion of products that were priced below three floor price thresholds ($1.30, $1.50 and $1.75 per standard drink), both overall and across six alcohol categories. We further identified the proportion of all products with a promoted price (e.g., 'was $10, now $8') that fell below each threshold.

Results: A small proportion of alcohol products were priced below the $1.30, $1.50 and $1.75 floor price thresholds (4%, 5% and 7%, respectively). The majority of cask wine products were priced below each threshold (86%, 88% and 89%, respectively), whereas only a small fraction of cider (9%, 12% and 28%), bottled wine (6%, 8% and 12%), beer (1%, 1% and 4%), spirits (0%, 0% and 1%) and premix drinks (0% for each) fell below these levels. Few products were promoted at a price below the corresponding thresholds (3%, 4% and 5%).

Discussion and conclusions: Most alcohol prices would be unaffected by MUP thresholds ranging from $1.30 to $1.75. Communicating this finding could increase the general acceptability of the policy.