NDARC developed a tool to collect the price of alcoholic beverages across two New South Wales (NSW) locations at quarterly intervals. Data on market composition and pricing of alcohol in NSW were collected from five major alcohol retailers at quarterly time points between June 2023 and April 2025 from both a capital city and remote location.

A total of 123,943 listings of alcohol products were collected. Products included beer and cider (categorised by low, mid, full and high strength), wine (categorised by size of vessel), spirits, and premixes.

Key findings

• The majority of product listings were wine across both locations and time, accounting for over half of all products.
• Significant shifts in the market over time included a decrease in the number of high-strength beers in the capital city location, with a corresponding increase in the number of high-strength ciders.
• The median prices of premix products were the highest, with beer and cider the cheapest.
• Wine accounted for most products under $0.80 per standard drink, as well as most products under $1.30 per standard drink. Cider had the highest percentage of products under $1.80 per standard drink, followed by wine and beer.
• Across both locations, there were fewer alcoholic products under each of the price thresholds over time, except for premix products where there were more products under $1.80 and $2.30 in 2024/25 compared to 2023/24.
• The cheapest product subtypes were wine in large vessel sizes, of which approximately 2 in 3 were under $0.80 per standard drink. The proportion of wine in large vessel sizes available under $0.80-$1.80 per standard drink decreased over time, but only in the capital city location.
• There were meaningful differences in the composition and pricing of products in the capital city and remote location, largely driven by the unique products available in each location. Specifically:
  • Proportionately, more wine products in large vessel sizes were available only in the remote location. Spirits and wine that were available only in the remote location were cheaper than those only available in the capital city location.
  • Proportionately, more cider products available only in the capital city location were under the price thresholds of $1.30, $1.80 and $2.30. More cider products available only in the capital city location were also very high-strength products.
• Almost all (98.1% in 2024/25) of the cheapest 5% of all products were wine across time and location.
• Of the 1539 wine brands identified in the capital city location in 2024/25, 38 brands only sold products that were in the cheapest 5% of available products, and 77 sold both the cheapest products as well as other products. A similar distribution was observed in the remote area.
• Compared to the other 95% of products in the market, the cheapest 5% of beers and spirits were most likely to be from Victoria and Europe; cider and premix from Victoria and an unspecified Australian location; and wine from NSW South Eastern Australia, and an unspecified Australian location.
• The product type with the highest mean payable tax as a percentage of price was spirits, with the mean payable tax approximately 50% of the price. The approximate mean payable tax of premix products was 43% and of beer products was 34%. For cider and wine, the mean payable tax was uniform at 30.8% and 26.5%, respectively.
• The lowest mean payable tax per standard drink was for wine products in large vessel sizes (approximately $0.28), followed by very high-strength cider (approximately $0.45).
• Both the lowest 5^th percentile of payable tax per standard drink, and the highest 95% percentile of payable tax per standard drink, were for wine i.e., wine products had the largest variance in tax paid per standard drink.
• Over both financial years and location, the majority of beer, cider and premix products were price discounted on at least one occasion during monitoring. The majority of wine products were also price discounted but only in the capital city location.
• Over time, the proportion of spirits with a price discount increased in the remote location, and the proportion of wine products with a price discount increased in both locations.
• Of all products that were available at discounted prices, the majority of beer, cider and premix products had a volumetric discount, whereas the majority of spirits and wine products had a price promotion discount.

Recommended citation

Man, N., Miller, M., Sadaphale, V., Craig, M., Buckfield, L., Livingston, M., Callinan, S., Jiang, J., Henderson, A., Britton, I., Kowalski, M., Taylor, N., & Peacock, A. Alcohol retailer off-premise beverage market composition and pricing in New South Wales: July 2023 – April 2025. Sydney: National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Sydney; 2025. Available from: doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/31851

Funding

This project was supported by funding from the New South Wales Ministry of Health.

The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre is supported by funding from the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. Amy Peacock is supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council Investigator Fellowship.

Disclosures of interest

All authors declare no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the contributions of Wing See Yuen, Qingyuan Linghu, and Amy Yang to the pilot study. We would like to acknowledge the contribution of Agata Chrzanowska in the visual design of this report and Michael Livingston to the overall project.

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which the work for this report was undertaken. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging.

Copyright

©NDARC, UNSW SYDNEY 2025

This work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form only (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation. All other rights are reserved. Requests and enquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the information manager, NDARC, UNSW Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia via drugtrends@unsw.edu.au.

Download these resources

• NSW Alcohol Pricing 2025 - Report
• NSW Alcohol Pricing 2025 - Infographics
• NSW Alcohol Pricing 2025 - Appendix

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