Speaking for the first time since taking on the role as Woolworths director of supermarkets from Tjeerd Jegen in February, New Zealander Dave Chambers has told Fairfax Media that the leading Australian retailer is going back to basics to stay ahead of the increasingly competitive Australian retail sector.
With rival Coles outperforming Woolworths in sales each quarter for the past five years, and German discounter Aldi increasing its share, Chambers told Fairfax Media that customers experience would be at the forefront of store refurbishes.
“What we're after is having a great store every day for our customers,' Chambers told Fairfax. 'We need to have stores in the right place, we need to have a great network looking forward, we have to have the right price and we have to have a great experience for the customer.
“All those elements need to be working very well – this is the last piece.”
Woolworths has announced a A$65m (US$46.7m) investment over the coming 12 months to upgrade its stores, and is increasing its staff hours to improve shelf availability of key products such as fruits and vegetables.
'We are starting to do better on trolleys and baskets and staff attitude,' Chambers said.'Fruit and vegetables, queue time and out-of-stocks are the three [areas]we have the most opportunity in.'
Chambers has also flagged changes to store formats, opting for four types of stores labelled as premium, mainstream, mainstream rural and budget.
'We need to think about [how customers are shopping]not just today but where customers will be,' Chambers said.'We might see more value-oriented stores that have more space given to good products but in affluent communities more space given to best products.'
