Supermarkets and Retail

I could be completely wrong here but didn’t some of the Woolworths stores in NSW that were not open 24/7 have a service window that was available past the close time?

Do many places around Australia have a drive through grocery store? There is one here on the Brisbane bayside; works just as you’d expect with - drive up to the window, place order and the staff collect the items and deliver through the window. Seems to be quite popular, especially I would imagine for a small number of items - saves time parking etc. My guess is it seems to be most popular with younger demographic who might want cigarettes or milk.

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Think I’ve mentioned this here or elsewhere.

Due to nighttime penalty rates being increased for supermarket workers, and the need for regular re-stocking due to online shopping, the two majors have moved to almost permanently restocking shelves during the day, with a big push from 7pm to 10pm to be ready for the morning online fulfilments.

Before COVID, the stores would be restocked from 9/10pm until 12/1am (or later), which meant that stores could operate after 10pm with one (or two for busier stores) on the checkouts and the rest re-stocking, with them able to move staff to checkouts as needed if a busy rush came on.

Now, with all re-stocking being done by 10pm, the stores would need to be staffed by extra workers that previously didn’t need to be on (in order to have redundancy and cover breaks etc at the checkout), purely for the checkouts. So instead, the supermarkets shut to save costs.

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Both Coles and Woolworths will have oodles of data to draw from to decide their trading hours and to find the balance between cost to stay open and revenue. If there was a quid to be made by opening earlier or later, they’d be all over it like a fat kid on cake.

I wouldnt be surprised if some of these truncated opening hours are reasonably shortlived

Our Woolies has taken to doing “night” fill on Sunday afternoons now

Same here in Coles Hamilton

i think coles here in Wendouree are now 7am till 9pm or will be from monday

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That is a pain in some of the higher trading QLD stores on weekends that only trade 9/6. Cairns is terrible as weekends are even busier with the tourist traffic, especially Sunday , pallets/shit absolutely everywhere.

Will be a relief when they open that Woolworths at Trinity Beach.

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Coles today announced that the deli counters at some of its supermarkets would now close at 8pm each night.

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Is that really new? I shop around that time most weeks, both Coles/Woolies and almost always everything is covered in plastic wrap. I think sometimes the people at the counters might get me something, but they are cleaning it down and packing up.

Seriously. Those 7 News Australia & 7 Life posts are on par with Daily Mail these days. So tabloid. And so stupid.

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Careful, the way they trawl social media for clickbait, your post could become their next headline

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I had to laugh at one, one afternoon they singled a guy out because he didn’t wear shoes in Woolies lol. Literally everyone does this :roll_eyes:

They have Mainland Cheese on “special” for $9.50 for 500g yet IGA and Drakes normal price is $9.50 whereas Coles and Woolies now charge $10.

I think Woolies had it on special for $9 for 500g a couple of weeks ago so Coles special is worse .

Drakes did that Woolies thing where they temporarily increase then drop the price . I notice when i was there the other day the price paper label said Price Drop was $12.97 dropped Jan 2023 to $9.50 …

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Dodgy

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Big W is similar in that to save money (most) stores now do morning/day fill and save night fill for key events (Christmas or when the loading dock needs to be tidied up to an extreme amount). There’s also seasonal trading hours (summer = open earlier and close later, winter months = open later, close earlier).

The pallets and cages around supermarkets like Woolies and Coles are an annoyance, particularly when they’re sandwiched in an aisle that the item(s) you are after happen to be in.

Also it’s peculiar that Woolworths have been in cost cutting mode and seem to be trimming the wage budget left, right and center - all while expecting the same work output from those left to carry the daily operations. I heard how bad some Woolworths stores are now (eg: a normal daily roster of 45 - 60 workers, is now 20-30). I understand the need to save money where possible, but Woolworths did reasonably well during the pandemic. I guess they are making up for the daily losses (that are in some ways still occurring).

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What daily loses?

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Target Werribee closing for most of this year. Looks like structural issues out the front of the store, within the area.

Bit late to reply but I meant things like daily budget vs what the store(s) make for the day. And also stock loss, a lot gets shoplifted during the day!

Well I doubt the profitability of Woolworths decreased significantly during the pandemic enough to justify their current behaviour.

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Not making budget does not count as a “loss”.
Don’t listen to middle managers trying to justify slashing staffing levels.

They also budget for a specific %age of shrinkage, so again blaming this for cutting staffing levels is BS.

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