Its not me, Woolworths, it’s you. It has been you for a while now. It began with stock I wanted to buy not being on the shelves even though there was a space and a price ticket for those items. It continued with mouldy fresh food – from the “fresh food people” that is especially disturbing.
Then, you never had enough staff on the checkouts, and after waiting more than 20 minutes to check out on several occasions even though I had less than 12 items each time, I was deeply annoyed.
You kept sending me offers which clearly your marketing boffins are behind which were nowhere near as good as the offers that Coles were sending me – I was offered $50 credit at Coles in return for spending $70 a week for 4 weeks.. which = $280 -50 = $230 @Coles VS $300 -30 = $270 for 3 weeks @ Woolworths. A big splooshy raspberry to that!
At this point I was more than ready to break up with you. The one reason I went back – Coles only stock small Twisties packets and I wanted the larger packet.
But then, the final two straws.
Did you know your catalog now sucks?
Each fortnight, when I shop, I look at the catalog for Coles, then the catalog for Woolworths. I do the main shop at Aldi and then visit Coles and Woolworths for items on special which cannot be purchased from Aldi. Woolworths decided to change the catalog.
With this new catalog, to view *all* of each page, you have to use the scroll bar on the side.
This is extremely annoying, especially when so often the bit you scroll down to see is boring advertising junk that has NOTHING to do with shopping! And then, they fill double page spreads with this junk!
Well, Woolworths, I DECLINE THIS CONCEPT. Even so, I thought I would still give you a chance to earn some of my $$, by using the *paper* catalog which arrives in my letterbox. But no.
You don’t want me reading your catalogs, online, or paper. You had to send me the clearest possible message.
Message received. Content noted. We’re broken up, for good. KTHXBAI.
Twenty minutes is a ridiculous time to queue at a register and it has never happened to me. In spite of the inconvenience, I would have left my trolley load there and walked out, making sure they knew why. I haven’t looked at Woolworths electric catalogue lately. Theirs and Coles were pretty awful when first released.
I think a lot of people walk out leaving the trolley at that store, I have seen a lot of full trolleys with nobody attached to them. That is one thing I like about Aldi – they won’t put cold product back on the shelves, I’ve seen them throw it out. I’ve seen some clearly left out for some time cold goods at that Woolworths being put back on the shelves there. :(
The Aldi extra long conveyor system makes things super speedy, too – most people have all their stuff on the conveyor ready to scan before the previous person is finished being served, plus it is a lot faster overall for the staff. If I could get everything at Aldi, even if the prices were sometimes slightly higher than Coles or Woolworths, I’d totally do that. :)
We’ve been Coles shoppers for years, find they’re cheaper than Woolies on the whole. I’ve had some bad experiences with un-fresh fresh food from the fresh food people too.
I took a look at their Facebook posts to page a while back and what a nightmare of un-fresh goods that was! Coles here are using ice on the veges which I find to be a bit of a problem. Most of our fresh stuff is from Aldi, where they do not attempt such shenanigans. :) I’ll buy citrus at Coles sometimes.
We’ve been shopping with Woolworths online for almost a year and we’re loving it. No queues, no carrying heavy bags and no trawling the aisles! It’s been a game changer. That said, we buy our fresh stuff locally because I’m too much of a control freak to have someone choose ye olde fruit and veggies! I hope you have a lovely, long lasting relationship with Coles (and that they start to stock big packs of Twisties soon!)
I’ve thought of trying online shopping, especially this last winter with all the sneezing people in the supermarkets. However now that Woolies and I are done, Coles is the only option and their stuff travels over 50km to get to us, even though we have a store about 5km away. :/ If they start doing the online stuff locally I might give it a go. :)
Realistically though, from our $300 fortnightly food budget based on the past few months receipts, 150-200 goes to Aldi, less than 50 to Woolies, and the remainder to Coles. Some weeks it has just been Aldi and Coles. So until Aldi does online, we’re going to have to go to the store. :)
I’ve broken up with several stores: a couple of grocery stores because they got rid of my favorite items(and ones I could only get at their store) and one hardware place where I was treated like a DUMB woman. I live in an area where I have lots of choices and I choose to shop where I’m treated well.
Lucky you! Well, I do have a few choices here, but not as many as I would in the city. :)
I hate that!
Me too! ;)
Clearly the folks at Woolies aren’t terribly interested in quality control over their catalogues! Plus, why waste half of a page with the blasted kids and place some sale items in their place ;)
It is like reading a carnival sideshow sometimes. The amount of times they do “collectible” things for the kids really irritates me. I think once a year max should be the limit, but the checkout people are forever asking me am I collecting X, Y or Z, and the answer is always hell no.
I shop at Woolies because they are the closest supermarket to me, seven minutes walking and I’m there, I need a bus to get to Coles. but I’m thinking of switching to Foodland, which is SA based, across the road from Woolies, so an extra three-five minutes walk, simply because more of their fresh produce is SA grown. And their shelf range is larger, there are things at Foodland that I can no longer get at Woolies or Coles.
I loved that big Foodland they opened in Pasadena – we used to go there all the time. I think it must be really difficult to live without Aldi. They bring the prices of the other two down when they show up in a new location. My Uncle was telling me they are opening a couple of Aldi in SA soon. :)
I am constantly surprised by how cheap Aldi is – two weeks worth of shopping usually comes in under $150 for us. :)
But where does Aldi stuff come from? I’m trying to support local growers as much as I can for fresh produce and with shelf and frozen items I’m trying not to buy too much from China.
I find it annoying to read labels that say packed in Australia from imported ingredients when we are capable of growing those ingredients here.
I’d have to do some checking, maybe that would make a good blog post. I know for certain the Champignons are from China because I would buy them if they were not. :)
I really despise the two page spread that some stores use in their websites. It doesn’t make it very easy to navigate.
I love Aldi, but I wish I could do a full week’s shopping there. There are some things they just don’t carry so then I have to go to another store. I try to save Aldi for times when I need to stock up on butter, shredded cheese, and basic baking supplies like flour and sugar.
I can get nearly everything we need at Aldi. It is just the brand name stuff that they don’t sell a version of. When they do bring out a version, 99% of the time we buy it there and it is a really good version, so I am hopeful one day I can do it all in one place. Just last fortnight they started selling croissants which is my favourite breakfast item though I will space them out so it isn’t every day. They were really good croissants. :)