Wesfarmers lifted FY26 revenue to A$47.27 billion with Bunnings and Kmart earnings growing on everyday low prices through a cost-of-living squeeze. A clear low-price position outsold the promotion calendar. The lesson for Australian operators is that a legible position compounds while discounts reset every month.
The Take: Wesfarmers just posted another multi-billion-dollar result by doing the least glamorous thing in marketing, which is dropping prices and saying so plainly. Bunnings and Kmart grew earnings through a cost-of-living squeeze on the back of everyday low prices. Positioning beat promotion, and it was not close.
The pattern: Wesfarmers lifted revenue 3.4% to A$47.27 billion in FY26, with Bunnings earnings up 5.1% and Kmart Group up 6.0%, both driven by everyday low prices rather than discount cycles. The group dropped prices on thousands of goods in response to Australian household cost-of-living pressure and grew anyway. The move that looked like margin sacrifice turned into share gain, because a lower price customers can count on pulls more volume than a sale they have to catch.
Who pays: A discount is a cost you carry once. A low-price position is a promise customers plan their week around. Kmart's household-goods value credentials did the selling, with no campaign attached to the moment of purchase. That is the difference between renting attention and owning a reason to be chosen, and only one of them keeps working after the ad stops running.
Wesfarmers FY26 revenue, built on prices it did not hide
On the ground: Australians are still spending, they are just choosing where. Households spent A$175 billion over the 2025/26 summer despite cost-of-living pressure, and the retailers taking that money are the ones whose position is legible before the customer walks in. Value here is not the cheap option. It is the clear one, and clarity is what a stressed Australian shopper rewards with repeat visits.
For Australian operators: In a squeezed market, a clear position outperforms a busy promotion calendar quarter after quarter. Decide what you stand for on price or value and hold it, rather than training customers to wait for your next sale. Audit whether your pricing tells one consistent story or a discount-driven scramble that resets each month. The read from the biggest retailers in the country is simple. A legible position compounds while promotions start again from zero, and the compounding is where the margin lives. Everyday low prices only hold if your costs let them, so fix the operations that keep dragging you back to the discount.