Woolworths’ has introduced its first dark store to support its on-demand delivery service \u2014 Woolies Dash \u2014 located in Cape Town’s CBD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A dark store isn’t open to the public and is dedicated to fulfilling online orders. Woolworths’ first dark store is servicing the city bowl and surrounding areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Woolworths online and mobile director Liz Hilock said their investment in dark stores would help improve their customers’ experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Woolworths said the Cape Town dark store has markedly impacted product availability for online orders in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It added that Woolies Dash orders are typically fulfilled through local Woolworths stores, meaning online orders compete with in-store shoppers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The dark store eliminates this competition, and customers enjoy quicker delivery, thanks to a dedicated environment designed to be online-first,” says Woolworths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It added that it plans to roll out more Woolies Dash dark stores across the country in the near future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The on-demand delivery service reported strong growth for the financial year ended 30 June 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the retailer facing several trading obstacles in the year, most of its business assets saw significant online growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Online food sales grew by 52.8%, contributing 5.5% of Woolworths’ total sales in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The retailer attributed the growth to increased penetration of the Woolies Dash service, which grew by 71.2% over the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company also observed a significant increase in online sales in its fashion, beauty, and home business. These sales increased by 30.4% and contributed 5.6% of total sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, it noted that it faced some challenges that negatively impacted trade, including the popularity of players like Shein and Temu in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Whilst our Fashion, Beauty, and Home business continues to make steady progress on a number of its strategic priorities, trade was impacted by the weak macro environment, poor availability, and increased competition from the disruptive entry of international online retailers,” Woolworths said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite these challenges, Woolworths says it consistently sees sales growing by over 50% in food and beauty, home, and fashion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The retailer plans to roll out more dark stores across South Africa in the near future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":538933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49317],"tags":[96723,71388,77160,22079,76722,8507],"class_list":["post-556285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it-services","tag-dark-store","tag-liz-hillock","tag-on-demand-delivery","tag-online-grocery-shopping","tag-woolies-dash","tag-woolworths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556285"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556285"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556300,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556285\/revisions\/556300"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}