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There are hundreds of Woolworths stores scattered throughout the country and the majority welcome customers will open arms, hoping that they will open their wallets wide open. But there are a handful of Woolies stores that do not welcome any customers.

Known as ‘dark stores’, these Woolworths outlets have been set up purely for the purposes of fulfilling online shopping orders.

We are addicted to the convenience and price advantages of online shopping and after trying out Coles for a few months, we’ve been using Woolworths’ online shopping services for a few years now.

Aldi may offer certain price advantages over the major retailers but the fact that they don’t provide online shopping is a major downside.

As reported in Yahoo! Finance, Woolworths now has over 600 trucks on the road doing online deliveries around the country.

But while online purchasing is all about convenience for the shopper, Woolworths needs to make sure there is a chain of staff to fulfill the order, pack them and deliver them.

Customer-Free Zones

In order to make it easier to collect together online orders, Woolworths has set up dark stores or Customer fulfilment centres.

It is understood that these stores are basically identical to a normal supermarket, with different areas for frozen foods, fruit & veg and pantry products.

However, the big difference is that there are no customers in these stores and they exist solely to prepare online orders.

Because regular shoppers are forbidden to enter these stores, the personal shoppers can quickly and efficiently put together online orders, effectively saving time and money for Woolworths.

At present, there are three of these types of stores – West Footscray in Melbourne, Mascot in inner Sydney and Brookvale in northern Sydney.

Not all online orders are fulfilled in these stores but we suspect that this is the direction the retailer is heading towards.

Do you order your groceries online? Tell us in the comments below.

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  • Interesting concept and it tells you that they must be getting a load of orders to sustain this.

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  • Wow, I had no idea about this!

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  • Sometimes, I will do online orders at Woolworths, but mainly around Christmas time, so I can avoid the mad rush as much as possible. I have never done online orders with Coles, my local Coles store still does not offer online ordering, which I find frustrating,

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  • That’s interesting. Mostly I purchase in store, occasionally online.

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  • Every now and again for click and collect, particularly with a baby it’s much easier! This makes sense for the staff, much easier without customers.

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  • Wow that is kinda creepy! I don’t like to order groceries online- everything else yes, but I like to pick my own fruit as I know what I like and you miss the opportunity for markdowns and the shopping experience buying online.

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  • I never have, and am not interested in online grocery shopping. And I always wondered how they managed their orders and deliveries. Interesting to know.

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  • I’d like to try online food shopping as sometimes it’s just a bit hard with the kids.

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  • I’d love to be able to get my shopping delivered. I have to drive 15 mins to the nearest Woolies which only dose pick up which is great. Not having to drive would be even better.

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  • I’ve wondered how they manage to get online orders done sometimes! Must be weird to work in a store with no customers, probably bliss

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  • I have never purchased groceries on line, I prefer to do it in store. I love to peruse the isle and often I buy something that I hadn’t intended too so from a retail point of view, they are making more money off me when I go in to shop and I but more than I planned.

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  • I prefer to shop in store, every time I do it online they never give me everything I order or the expiry dates are too short esp on fridge items

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  • I much prefer to purchase in store. The one time that I did purchase online, I received many products that were very close to their expiry.

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  • I like shop in the store than online. Like to have a touch and feels before buying them.

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  • I don’t have the advantage of home delivery so I do click and collect. The closest Woolworths store is 200kms away so I place my order on line and tick that I will be using my own bags. It means I have plenty of time to do anything else I need to do while in town.

    Reply

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