Coles’ e-commerce space has seen a steady financial growth of just over 1% compared to the previous year. Australia’s second largest supermarket chain has just released its full year financial results.
Although the numbers are far from catching up with online sales experienced during COVID-19 lockdown periods, it’s still worth tracking.
Coles’ e-commerce revenue from its liquor sales alone, increased by 22.6% and penetration was 5.7%. Its On-Demand Delivery service is now available in more than 660 stores across Australia. It’s also introduced express delivery through DoorDash and UberEats.
The supermarket’s e-commerce sales for the second half of 2023 are $2.8 billion, with penetration of 7.5%. Online grew by 10.1% in the last 6 months of the financial year.
Online shopping simplified
The group also simplified the app checkout process to deliver a better shopping experience, making it much faster.
Customers are more often looking for an omnichannel shopping experience. This is when they do their research online trying to spot the best deals. This happens while customers are in fact inside a store pushing a trolley. The popular trend called research online buy instore (ROBI) has led to Coles enhancing its digital capabilities. It’s aiming to provide a more “seamless shopping journey” by adding digital receipts and even a shopping mode selector.
Coles CEO Leah Weckert said key features have been added to the app, which includes a filter function to select more diet specific products.
Online shopping options expanded
Coles has now added 35 new Home Delivery stores across Australia and upgraded 463 stores with a Rapid Delivery option. The Rapid Delivery option ensures groceries are delivered to a customer in less than 90 minutes.
There are also now 33 stores doing Same-Day Delivery, while 448 Click&Collect stores have been upgraded to Rapid Delivery. This allows deliveries to be made within an hour or less.
E-commerce growth in fourth quarter
The e-commerce online sales have seen a 17% increase in the fourth quarter. When comparing last year (2022) to this year, it’s down overall from a 41% online revenue to a 1% revenue.
Coles’ Chief Digital Officer, Ben Hassing said: “We were up against the growth from the lockdown two years previously and naturally for consumers they went back to shopping in-store. One of the behaviors though that did change pre-and post lockdown is that more and more customers are engaging with us digitally. So when they go and shop in stores, they are engaging with Coles digitally and making better and more informed choices as they shop.”
Online contributes to profitability
“We are pleased with the trend online. On the profitability, there is a positive contribution to the group as a result of online,” said Hassing.
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After the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers naturally returned to instore shopping. However, Coles and other retailers are now noticing how consumers are preferring a mixture of online and instore shopping.
“We are really excited about the growth that we got in the digital space and the early success that we had on Coles360 (its media retail business). We are really excited to take forward the evolving strategy that we got and start implementation of that in the business as we move forward,” said Weckert.
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Mia is a multi-award-winning journalist. She has more than 14 years of experience in mainstream media. She's covered many historic moments that happened in Africa and internationally. She has a strong focus on human interest stories, to bring her readers and viewers closer to the topics at hand.
