Countdown has opened Wellington’s first purpose-built and permanent eStore, which will help service the significant and growing demand it is seeing for online shopping delivery in the region.
The new eStore comes as demand for Countdown’s online shopping grew by 74% between April and June 2020 and made up 11% of total sales.
Operating 24 hours a day and seven days a week, the 3500sqm eStore will employ a team of more than 100 people – around half of these roles have been filled by existing team members from other stores, and the rest of the new team are brand new jobs for the Wellington region. It will service more than 7000 online orders each week at full capacity.
Countdown’s General Manager Brand and CountdownX, Sally Copland, says that Kiwis’ demand for online shopping has been growing steadily for some time, but she could never have predicted the role online shopping services would play for New Zealanders over the course of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We scaled up quickly to increase our delivery and pick up volumes, including introducing the country’s first eStore in Penrose, Auckland, and launching our Priority Assistance service for more than 200,000 customers who weren’t able to shop in-store during lockdown,” says Copland.
“While the massive demand of lockdown has thankfully subsided, more people are choosing to stay shopping online, and in Wellington, demand is growing faster than anywhere else in the country so we knew it was the next logical choice for an eStore.
“We’ve been opening up more online hubs and delivery windows in Wellington to help meet the increased demand, but the eStore is really going to allow us to serve more Wellingtonians faster, and more frequently,” says Copland.
The new eStore will provide more delivery times, more orders per timeslot, better product availability, and reduce the load on Countdown’s bricks and mortar stores too making the in-store shopping experience better.
The eStore was officially opened by Andy Foster, Mayor of Wellington.
“Wellington’s retail experience is one of the best in New Zealand and the opening of Countdown’s eStore will both expand on that service offering while at the same time providing more local jobs. We are now very aware of the importance to the community of having resilient supply lines such as shopping online and the heroic role our retailing teams undertook during the pandemic lockdown. Whether they were in store or in the warehouses,” says Mayor Foster.
Countdown’s newest eStore will help support online customers from Tawa, Porirua, Aotea, Lower Hutt, Johnsonville Mall and Kilbirnie. Online Pick Up orders will continue to be fulfilled and collected from local stores, with increased windows available at each store due to moving delivery orders to the Grenada North eStore.
“Across our business we’re continuing to really challenge ourselves to provide the best experience possible for both our online and in-store customers,” says Copland.
