The imminent arrival of US e-commerce giant Amazon is forcing Australia’s leading supermarkets Coles and Woolworths to re-think their convenience offerings.
Last week, Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci announced that the national supermarket will be exploring drive-through pick ups and on-demand delivery in coming years as part of its omnichannelplan.
“What we really want to do is provide our customer with a multitude of options in how they shop with us, whether its in-store, pick-up at store, pick-up at the front of store, pick-up via drive-through or home delivery – at a designated time or express within one hour,” he said. “We have an aspiration to activate every one of those opportunities…for food in the short-term and longer term with food, drinks and general merchandise.'
And today, Fairfax is reporting that supermarket rival Coles has been trialling on-demand delivery with Uber offshoot Uber Rush since early August.
From its ‘dark store’ in Melbourne’s Richmond, Coles has been using the transport service to deliver missing or replacement products to customers, though Uber told Fairfax that at the moment there are no plans to further roll out the trial.
Amazon opened its first Australian fulfilment centre in Melbourne’s Dandenong earlier this year, though whether the retail giant will launch its fresh offering has yet to be confirmed.
