Woolworths online and mobile director Liz Hilock said the company’s investment in dark stores would improve its customers’ experience using Woolies Dash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The strategy of using dark stores helps eliminate the need for online orders through Woolies Dash to compete with in-store customers, by providing a dedicated space to store products and fulfil on-demand orders.<\/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,” Woolworths said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The retailer plans to open more dark stores across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Investing in dark stores is testament to our focus on creating a future-fit omnichannel offering, that leverages and transforms existing assets to continuously improve our customer’s experience,” said Hilock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Woolworths started trialling its on-demand delivery service in 18 stores in Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg in December 2020, and Woolies Dash has shown strong growth in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has also significantly contributed to the growth of Woolworths’ other online business assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the time, Hilock said the retailer had observed strong online sales growth in the prior year, adding that Woolies Dash would add a same-day delivery service to its online offerings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Woolies Dash complements our already expansive online service, from our scheduled delivery service with a broad regional footprint to our drive-through click-and-collect service, and now our same-day service with Woolies Dash,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Woolworths’ annual results for the year ended 30 June 2024 reported strong online growth for most of its business assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Woolies Dash led the charge despite the retailer facing several trading obstacles during the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It attributed its growth to increased penetration of the Woolies Dash service, which grew by 71.2% in the financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Online food sales grew by 52.8%, contributing 5.5% of the retailer’s total sales in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Woolworths also reported significant online growth in its fashion, beauty, and home business segments, with sales growing by 30.4% and contributing 5.6% of the retailer’s total sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its online growth came despite facing challenges that negatively impacted trade, including threats from international 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":" Woolworths’ dark stores support its on-demand delivery service Woolies Dash by acting as dedicated fulfilment centres for orders.<\/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_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49317],"tags":[96723,97302,77160,76722,8507],"class_list":["post-564721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it-services","tag-dark-store","tag-liz-hilock","tag-on-demand-delivery","tag-woolies-dash","tag-woolworths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564721"}],"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=564721"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":564851,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564721\/revisions\/564851"}],"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=564721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/WoliesDash1-scaled-e1670401097823-1197x800.webp\")