Woolies moving online

Supermarket giant rolls out app-based shopping

WOOLWORTHS has fired its latest salvo in the battle for supermarket shoppers, rolling out its click-and-collect grocery service nationwide.

The nation’s biggest supermarket chain will offer the service, which allows shoppers to place their order online and pick it up from a nominated outlet, at 970 locations across Australia.

The supermarket giant has quietly introduced the service to 670 new outlets over the past month to ensure the service is available at almost all of its outlets.

The service will be rolled out to 240 stores in Queensland.

The national rollout of the online shopping method, rebranded Pick Up, comes ahead of the Australian launch of retail titan Amazon which spent more than $17 billion buying an up-market supermarket chain in the US in August.

Woolworths has also spent $1 billion lowering its prices and investing in service over the past 18 months in order to better take on Coles and Aldi.

Coles offers its click and collect service at about 150 locations.

Woolworths online operations head Lisia Roth said the supermarket had trained more than 4500 personal shoppers to pick and pack customer groceries.

“With the addition in just one month of over 670 stores as online shopping collection points, we are now providing additional convenience for customers in all corners of the country,” she said.

The pick-up service is free but orders must be worth more than $30.

Customers can select a pick-up time but must order by 11am for same-day collection after 4pm.

Shoppers can also track their order via an app which will notify the supermarket when they are approaching to enable speedy pick-up.

A drive-through pick-up service and dedicated parking and collection locker are also available at some locations.