Woolworths will trial a ‘click and collect’ option at Bondi Junction train station. Will people actually use it? Picture: Adam Taylor
WOOLWORTHS could be about to revolutionise supermarket shopping by letting consumers “click and collect” shopping at the train station on their commute home from work.
This is a good idea — an actual innovation that might help shoppers. We only hope they actually deliver it this time.
Coles and Woolworths have had a long period of being the biggest and most profitable supermarkets in Australia, and in that time, little has changed for the better about supermarket shopping.
Innovation of the sort customers love has been scarce.
We got self-service check-outs, sure. But those are mostly about cutting the wages bill — I’m not aware of anyone who likes them. And we’ve seen the rise of home brand goods. Again, mostly about the supermarket bottom line.
And of course we’ve seen them screw prices down at the farm gate to deliver $1 milk. That’s good, so long as you’re not a dairy farmer. Coles’ jingle: Down, Down, Prices Are Down is probably the best invention in Aussie supermarkets recently.
Here’s one innovation we really didn’t want.Source:News Limited
This lacklustre period of profitmaking created the opening for the influx of foreign supermarkets.
When Aldi arrived it was like a fox in the henhouse. The prey sat startled while Aldi gorged itself at will and grew fat. Aldi is so confident it opened four new stores in one day in South Australia this month and plans to open 12 more in the state before the end of the year.
But Aldi is not the only sharp-eyed foreign invader. Aldi clone Lidl is sniffing around still, Costco is making a big splash, and just last week it emerged that Woolworths Holdings — that’s the other huge retailer called Woolworths, the one based in South Africa — is also planning to take on the big Aussie supermarkets.
Woolworths Holdings purchased Aussie department store David Jones in 2014. It will now use that brand to launch a high-end food retailer.
“There is a gap in the market,” Woolworths Holdings boss said last week. “It’s not being provided by Woolworths or Coles and we can fill that gap.”
The Aussie Woolworths tried to launch a posh grocer in 2008 — Thomas Dux. They’re now closing that chain down after they couldn’t make it work. Can the South African Woolworths turn posh food shopping into a profit-spinner? If so it will only prove the point that our local supermarkets should and could have tried much harder.
The few ideas Aussie supermarkets have had were pursued half-heartedly.
In the US and UK, Amazon Prime is doing one-hour delivery of groceries. Here, Woolies has given us click and collect at petrol stations. I don’t get the sense that’s been a blazing game-changer.
Woolworths are probably doing a better job in online shopping though — I’ve used Coles website and it looks seriously out-of-date. They also trumpeted petrol station click and collect for a while but their website doesn’t mention it now.
It’s almost as if they don’t want us shopping online — as if they think they can get us to buy more by coming into the stores. Could that be right?
Maybe. The Click and Collect from train stations, it seems, is just a 12-month trial at one train station — Sydney’s Bondi Junction. It might take a few more foreign supermarkets arriving before Coles and Woolies get the jolt they need to really start innovating.
Jason Murphy is an economist. He publishes the blog Thomas The Thinkengine.
Follow Jason on Twitter @Jasemurphy
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