{"id":617324,"date":"2025-11-10T14:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T12:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=617324"},"modified":"2025-11-10T15:48:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T13:48:14","slug":"woolworths-dark-store-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/it-services\/617324-woolworths-dark-store-secret.html","title":{"rendered":"Woolworths’ dark store secret"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Woolworths says it can’t yet disclose further details about the rollout of dark stores that support its on-demand delivery service, Woolies Dash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dark stores aren’t open to the public and are dedicated to fulfilling online orders. The retailer launched its first dark store<\/a>, located in Cape Town’s CBD, in August 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’re not ready to talk about new developments in the Dark Store space just yet,” Woolworths told MyBroadband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October 2024, the retailer said its first dark store, which serves on-demand delivery customers in the city bowl and surrounding areas, was proving successful<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said the facility had helped it significantly improve efficiency and offer more delivery slots in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, a spokesperson told MyBroadband that the retailer planned to launch new dark stores and hoped to announce its next one soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The introduction of our first dark store in the Cape Town CBD, servicing the city bowl and surrounding areas, has been a big success,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They added that the space and format are geared to online picking, and Woolworths’ online team can scale to increased demand more easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spokesperson said the dark store enables Woolworths to offer a full product catalogue to a larger group of customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We can put more order volumes through a store where we don’t compete with in-store shoppers for either aisle space or product availability,” they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These improvements have contributed to Dash growing by 71% in the last financial year.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its announcement introducing the Cape Town CBD dark store, Woolworths said it significantly improved product availability for online orders in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It explained that Woolies Dash orders are usually fulfilled through local Woolworths outlets. This means that 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,” the retailer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, it wants to roll out Woolies Dask dark stores across the country to support the on-demand delivery service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Investing in dark stores is a testament to our focus on creating a future-fit omnichannel offering that leverages and transforms existing assets to continuously improve our customer experience,” said Woolworths online and mobile director Liz Hillock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strong online sales growth driven by Woolies Dash<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths launched Woolies Dash in December 2020, trialling the service in 18 stores in Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg. The on-demand delivery service has shown strong growth in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The retailer’s financial results for the 2025 financial year showed continued online sales growth, with a significant contribution coming from Woolies Dash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 52 weeks ending 29 June 2025, Woolworths’ overall online sales reached R7.78 billion, representing 8.9% growth over the same period last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woolies Dash turnover increased by 41.6%<\/a>. This helped bump the proportion of online sales in Woolworth’s food category to 6.6%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Online food sales grew 32.9% and contributed a significant R3.33 billion in turnover to the total online sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This followed strong online sales growth in the previous financial year, when Woolies Dash also led the charge for the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths attributed the online sales growth to increased penetration of the Woolies Dash service, which grew by 71.2% in the financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, online food sales increased by 52.8%, accounting for 5.5% of the retailer’s total sales in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woolworths launched its first Dark Store in August 2024 and says it isn’t ready to share new developments in the space yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":538087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49317],"tags":[96723,97302,76722,8507,102133],"class_list":["post-617324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it-services","tag-dark-store","tag-liz-hilock","tag-woolies-dash","tag-woolworths","tag-woolworths-on-demand-delivery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617324"}],"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=617324"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":617449,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617324\/revisions\/617449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}