Yeah, I don’t understand why Australia Post has decided to close this post office. Perhaps it doesn’t want to deal with the new landlord?
Its central location and GPO status means patronage is very high. It’s a large retail space with parcel lockers and display space for coins and philaletic collections that otherwise can’t be found in a suburban Post Shop.
It depends what the rentis like in this prime location.EVen if patronage is good it might not justify paying a premium rent. Sadly I can see this happening in Sydney too where the GPO is surrounded by heritage bank buildings which have been converted to flagship stores for big name designers.
I’ve noticed in Myer recently the amount of staff that don’t work there, they work for the brands and refuse to serve you at the register unless buying items from that brand.
More or less this - the most important location for them now is out in the vicinity of Sunshine with the big parcel facility they have there.
In the city itself, the closest thing they’d probably consider to a “central” post office would probably be the Southern Cross Lane one underneath their headquarters, yet that feels so detached from everything (being up near Exhibition St) that to call it that would feel weird.
I guess it also depends on what happens to the GPO box numbers and “3001” postcode… if they aren’t just aliases for other boxes across Melbourne these days; I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens already.
There is a separate location for the Melbourne GPO boxes. They are located at 380 Bourke Street, just a two-minute walk from the old GPO complex and Bourke Street Mall, and a 10-minute walk from the GPO Post Shop.
This is taken from Google Maps.
Didn’t the distance from central Melbourne once get measured from the Post Office?
I tried to use my Coles Flybuys points on Flypay again this week… it came up with an error message and took all my points down to zero. It did that last week when i tried to use a promo code and the Flybuys points. Points were readded. Never seem to have problems with Woolies.
It does, and it still will do - not like the GPO building itself will go away.
Woolworths are miles ahead when it comes to IT platforms and these rewards programs.
Flybuys needs a bit to work. You need a physical card to use the points instore.
Woolworths EDR app is pretty good. FB is so clunky. Woolworths points also come over instantly. Coles seems to take days. I like that Wow also convert QFF instantly, they even transfer to your QF account instantly.
Cokes Group/Wesfarmers underinvested in IT/Digital last decade meanwhile it was all Woolworths talked about. Remember how late Bunnings was to the online game.
I find that interesting as wasn’t fly buys around for quite a while before Every Day rewards existed. They just need to have a option to convert fuel vouchers to Qantas points.
My interactions with Coles IT over the past decade always left me extremely pissed off and/or frustrated. Their systems have been terrible forever (and still are) and whenever there is an issue it is always someone else’s fault. I cannot tell you how glad I am not to have to deal with them anymore.
Woolies was the opposite experience. Responsive people and mostly decent systems. Whenever there was an issue they would actually look in to it rather than pass it off to someone else.
Night and day difference between the two.
not related to Coles IT as such, or perhaps maybe it is, but was frustrated upon cashing in my first load of recyclables into the container deposit scheme in Victoria. The deposit machines at the Visy site gives you a receipt/voucher redeemable at Coles as payment. Fine enough, I guess. But then when I get to Coles to use the vouchers, they won’t accept them at the checkout. Apart from the fact the checkout operator just stared at the voucher asking me what’s the dollar amount… when it is printed right there on the receipt… but the barcode on the receipt wouldn’t scan at the register. I had to go to the customer service desk to pay for my groceries and redeem the voucher.
Given it’s a new scheme in Victoria maybe Coles hasn’t rolled out the system to redeem the vouchers at the checkouts, but it was a very clunky way to claim the money.
As it turns out, the deposit scheme/Visy also has a mechanism to set up an online account and get paid by direct deposit rather than get ting paid with Coles vouchers. That actually seems to work very efficiently. With the next batch of cans deposited, the credit was put into the bank account within minutes.
Woolworths did the right thing in aligning all of its businesses under the same platform. Register systems in all divisions are the same, be it Woolworths/BIGW, Dans, Fuel, BWS and so on. You’re only dealing with one IT department that looks after all banners also. Back office, data centres, storage, everyone is hooked up to the same feed. The IT teams are not put in silo’s also, they cross work across all divisions. Fujitsu got the contract to service the whole group. It was quite a efficient setup and how large corporates especially multi site operations, should run IT.
Now Wesfarmers. Where do we start. They had IT divisions for each banner. Signed different contracts across each banner. All had different ops systems, nobody talked to each other, was little investment in upgrades, end result was just a mess. Target and Kmart still have shitty old systems. I will never forget Bunnings boss telling shareholders they were in no rush to jump into online. That same mindset seemed to be rife across its IT ambitions.
Yes, although it’s a bit difficult to compare the original Fly Buys (which started 30 years ago between Coles Myer, Shell and NAB) to the one today. The version in New Zealand is still pretty close to that, but the Australian version changed a lot, and certainly more recently as a result to Woolies’ options.
It’s interesting to see how the divested Coles Group and the rest of Wesfarmers has reacted to the “Everyday Extra” subscription system Woolies has now - which honestly, is probably more intended as a competitor to Amazon Prime than it is Coles (I suspect they see an Amazon entry into other things as more of a threat hence the higher tech spend and the WooliesX division’s existence).
OnePass seems like a decent deal if you spend a lot at those places (particularly Bunnings I imagine), but Coles still want to bundle their subscription in with unlimited delivery, which sort-of changes the value proposition (as I don’t really like home delivery 
).
I guess the one quirk with Woolies’ system is that it’d still be based on the “Woolworths Dollars” setup that they put in after they dumped Qantas the first time - which explains why you earn points in multiples of two, as 2 points is worth one cent. At least they have been fair in how they round the points both ways (so a $2.50 spend gets you two points but a $3.50 gets you four).
I don’t find any value in the stuff they have to directly spend points on with Flybuys - those travel deals and their online shop all seem terrible value compared to just buying things, so I just end up using the points exclusively to convert back into spending at Coles.
Woolworths I think have it right in terms of not bothering with that and letting you either just auto get the $10, or convert to QFF points. The friction at Woolworths is a lot lower on using the money off, being automatic rather than Flybuys where you need to redeem it, then use the card to ‘pay’ for it.
Though given the comments about their IT systems, maybe they don’t have an option. The usage experience of Woolworths’ stuff is a lot better all round - their eReceipts, instantly updating the points and the way you interact with it at the register are all superior.
So I went to Chadstone today. Meh, It was not that exciting. Did go to the Adidas store and got myself a few tops. The food court didn’t have anything I wanted. So caught the 623 bus to St Kilda, and then went into Leos Restaurant for a nice lunch.
Went to Southbank for desert (ice cream and coffee)
And back in my nice warm apartment about to go meet the pizza guy , as I ordered pizza for dinner 
(sorted for tonight and tomorrow) \
Overall, I enjoyed the bus trips and train trips today, especially the nice long commute from ChadStone Shopping Centre and St Kilda. It was like being at home.
There is much more than the food court at Chaddy. You should have went upstairs to the entertainment zone.
Lego land and Hoyts? That doesn’t interest me . 
What I love about WOW is it’s mostly ‘live’. Bonus points, EE bonus points, boosters, and so forth, it all happens instantly at the register. I boosted an offer for 10k points, spend xx dollars across two weeks, and the register advised me right before paying I’m about to get 5000 QFF points. I pay, head back to the car, open the Qantas App, and the points are already in my QFF account. I also did a click and collect at BIGW during Black Friday, when my order was confirmed and ready the points came through immediately, and was on the QFF account right away.
I still have not got my FB points from Coles on Boxing Day.
Do Flybuys do e-receipts? I can’t seem to see it, would be handy, especially for Kmart and Target when returning items
The full suite of eating outlets is up there. Not just Lego and Hoyts.
Pubs, Betty’s, Asian fusion, TGI’s, Fonda Mexican and many more.
