Countdown online shopping rates remain at record levels, overall sales up 6.9%

Friday, 6 November 2020

Countdown is opening more e-commerce stores to meet demand for online shopping.

Online shopping remained at record high levels at Countdown in the first quarter of the latest financial year, prompting the supermarket owner to open its third dedicated New Zealand e-commerce centre in Wellington.

Fear of Covid-19 has accelerated demand for online shopping, prompting businesses to invest more to service those customers. Australia’s Woolworths, which owns Countdown, FreshChoice, and SuperValue in New Zealand, said on Friday that e-commerce sales growth jumped 50.5 per cent in the 14 weeks to October 4 compared with the same period last year.

The supermarket company’s total sales in New Zealand grew 6.9 per cent to $1.877 billion from last year, of which 11.9 per cent were e-commerce sales, matching the record high level reached in the fourth quarter. In comparison, e-commerce sales grew just 38.4 per cent in the same period last year, and made up just 8.5 per cent of total sales.

Sales growth moderated over the quarter as Covid-19 restrictions reduced, the rate of inflation slowed and it cycled the popular Disney Words collectables programme last year, the company said.

* Countdown adds online shopping to mobile app

* Coronavirus: Will online shopping demand stick around in Alert Level 1 and beyond?

* Countdown plans to open Auckland centre for online shoppers

“There was a short-lived sales increase in August following new Covid cases being detected, however growth quickly returned to trend,” the company said, adding that Countdown’s SuperInsects educational programme in September was popular.

The company said prices rose an average 0.8 per cent in the first quarter, as customers bought more long life products. That’s a slower pace than the 2.3 per cent increase in the fourth quarter which was impacted by customers buying larger packs across the store and strong growth in higher-priced products.

New Zealand store numbers remained at 181 during the quarter. Countdown opened its first store to service online customers in Penrose, Auckland, during lockdown, and its Grey Lynn Central store in Auckland has been closed to the public since lockdown and services only online customers. Its Wellington online-only store at Grenada North opened in late September and the company also plans an online-only store within its Moorhouse store in Christchurch.

Countdown said centralising deliveries from its dedicated online stores meant it could scale and provide more delivery times and better product availability for online shoppers, while reducing the load on its bricks and mortar stores.