Woolworths is now seeking to hire personal shoppers to be part of their first Queensland-based Customer Fulfilment Centre (CFC) in Rochedale which is set to open sometime this June 2022.
The $85-million Rochedale CFC which will operate 24 hours a day, is needing more than 400 casual workers who will be responsible for picking, packing and loading the online-ordered goods for delivery. The new Rochedale CFC team members may be trained and assigned in multiple departments across the centre including Replenishment, Dispatch, Fulfilment, Fresh and Inventory.
The establishment of the 10,000sqm dark store is in response to the growing shift to online grocery shopping propelled by the pandemic. The new Rochedale site is Woolworths’ first in Qld and the latest addition to Woolworths’ network of fulfilment centres. The new fulfilment centre will not be open to the public as it will service online customers with a wider array of around 20,000 products providing a more efficient and faster delivery.
In its 2021 fiscal year report, Woolworths announced that its eCommerce sales surged by 74.7 per cent as compared to 2020. Meanwhile, the first half of 2022 saw eCommerce sales up by 48 per cent, enough to offset in-store-originated sales’ slight decline of 0.7 per cent for a total retail sales increase of 3.2 per cent.
The company attributed the strong performance of its digital arm to COVID-19 but growth in Q2 has slowed as restrictions in NSW and Victoria were lifted.
In early December 2021, Woolworths started with the construction of its first-ever automated fulfilment centre in Auburn, NSW. Two new fulfilment centres were also opened last year, one in Notting Hill, Victoria and one in Lidcombe, NSW along with Woolworths first eStore in Australia situated in Carrum Downs, Victoria. Other fulfilment centres already operating are located in West Footscray in Melbourne and Mascot and Brookvale in Sydney.