The pain of woolworths dickson - and the need for a market-driven solution

The busiest supermarket title has been doing the rounds for years, but nobody ever bothers to check if its still true.

Dickson would have to be one of the most disgraceful Woolies I’ve ever seen. It’s small, stinky, dingy, over-stocked, and the clientele are either on drugs or drunk, or both. Even Kambah Woolies is better, and that’s saying something.

To the aislie whingers; shop somewhere else, I doubt the problem will be resolved.

hax said :

Not long ago I was waiting in line, and some lady went right off the handle at one of the older checkout girls. She burst into tears and ran off, and everyone else in the store was a little shaken up (she was VERY loud and angry about the lines!)

That’s horrible, I hope the people in line told that woman off (or at least gave her some really bad greasies!!) Sadly, it’s the people at the bottom of the pecking order who generally have to bear the brunt of customer anger and rudeness.

Hackett IGA is good too – although smaller than Ainslie. But you will never have trouble getting a park.

I also live close to Dickson but refuse to shop at the Woolies there. I drive to Gungahlin.

Here’s a hint, though. Go to Aldi at Gungahlin. From the same (free) carpark you also have access to cheapish meat at High Country (Aldi meat still has a way to go), an Asian grocer and a really fantastic deli/fruit shop for any herbs etc you cant get at Aldi. Job done at abut 2/3 what a trip to Woolies/Coles will set you back and you don’t have to wade through any dodgy hangers-on loitering around outside.

I agree that Ainslie IGA is pretty good but I find the parking a bit of a pain sometimes.

Ainslie IGA is a great store, but it is generally MUCH more expensive than Dickson Woolies for groceries.

I go to Dickson Woolies for my major shop every month. The key is to do one big shop a month rather than lots of short trips, and go between 9-10.30pm on a weeknight. At that time you get the added bonus of all the strange denizens of the Inner North coming out to feed…

It is a bloody awful supermarket though.

Pickle said :

all these tales of unnecessary driving should attract a few obnoxious greenies to this post soon…

But just think of the savings to Australia’s mental health bill those voting with our feet are making!

I live in O’Connor and have been into Dickson Woolies once in the last 2 years. If you continue to shop there, you continue to prop up the facist regime! Don’t expect some other nice supermarket to come and bail you out. Market forces include demand as well as supply…

Vic Bitterman said :

shauno said :

If they replaced the barcode system with RFID stickers it would work much faster you could have your entire trolly scanned in an instant without touching any of the items. We use RFID for our parts and assets now and its great items can be picked up by hand scanners or fixed ones at distance of 5m.

How does that work? What about multiple items in the trolley that are the same ie 3 bags of chips?

Not 100% sure about the details on how it would work at supermarkets. But what happens is when an RFID tag (stickers in this case) are stuck on the product they contain coded information just like normal bar codes. But its passive until the tag passes through the radio field of the scanner which then wakes the tag up (powered by the radio waves) and it transmits the information. So if you had 3 bags of chips. It would just pick up the signal 3 times for the same product.

bd84 said :

I’m surprised anyone would have problems at woolies queanbeyan, there’s an area office above the store.

haha, no, not really.

i’ve been their twice for work, and the lines were pretty shit at the checkouts.

Oh fuck. I think i’ve said too much. I may or may not work for woolies. (Not dickson! OH GOOD GOD NO!)

But really, dont take it out on the kid serving you..yeesh, does it look like they own the store or something? Do they personally make the rosters, and decide that x amount of people are working then? No. Take it up with the manager or something, some non-rush time..duh.

Pickle said:

Pickle said :

all these tales of unnecessary driving should attract a few obnoxious greenies to this post soon…

They’re too busy waiting in line at Dickson Woolies.

Many of the checkout people are also filling shelves. Some supermarkets have a higher tolerance for lines than others ie they’ll let staff continue to beautify the tim tam display while the lines are 8 deep. Good supermarkets have them scuttle back to the checkouts when there’s 3 people waiting. And don’t have them close just because there’s no one in line.

My complaints are always by mail or email, I’d never have a go at the kid on the checkout!

hmm something went wrong there. the latter comment was directed at taco

FB (#10) has a point – I have never seen more than 5-6 checkouts open in any supermarket no matter how busy. Why do they actually build 12-20 checkouts when they only ever use half that amount? A few supermarkets I shop in have refurbished recently and added new checkouts, but regardless of how busy it gets, they never opened all the checkouts before, so why do they need more? Does any supermarket even roster on enough checkout chicks at one time time to open all their checkouts? What is the purpose of all the obsolete checkouts??? Does it fool anyone? Are there consumers out there who think “gee that supermarket has 20 checkouts, I won’t have to wait there” instead of assessing the actual queues? Someone who designs/builds supermarkets please do tell!

It’s no point getting angry at the staff serving you, they can’t do anything about the lines. If you manage to get through quickly you’re probably lucky, the trouble is that they do rosters on past history, the moment 30 idiots rock up at 11pm at night with trolleys full and expect full service or pretty much any time on a saturday they’re pretty much stuffed all it takes is 10 minutes to go from dead quiet to lines around the store.

The problem is similar to a lot of other workplaces in that they can’t get people to fill the jobs in canberra and when they do hire the kids they don’t bother showing up especially on weekends, but then you combine the problem with management (normally above store managers) telling them to cut staff to meet unrealistic budgets you end up with lines half way around the store. I’m surprised anyone would have problems at woolies queanbeyan, there’s an area office above the store.

Reply

Dickson woolies, hehe. I’ve seen many occasions where the line has been half way across the store even at 10:30pm, crazy.

Not long ago I was waiting in line, and some lady went right off the handle at one of the older checkout girls. She burst into tears and ran off, and everyone else in the store was a little shaken up (she was VERY loud and angry about the lines!)

Dickson woollies is an absolute hole.

I had heard it was the busiest woollies in the southern hemisphere, but it is probably a bit less busy now Gungahlin has supermarkets.

It can actually be better to go there Saturday morning – people don’t like to go when they have to pay for parking. But you can never tell there – it is insanely busy almost all the time. I gave up going there after seeing two fist fights in the aisles. It is too small for the amount of people, and getting bumped into all the time drives me crazy.

And when the express lane queue goes for the entire length of the shop and round the corner and isn’t moving, with upwards of 60 people, it is a reminder to never go back.

shauno said :

If they replaced the barcode system with RFID stickers it would work much faster you could have your entire trolly scanned in an instant without touching any of the items. We use RFID for our parts and assets now and its great items can be picked up by hand scanners or fixed ones at distance of 5m.

How does that work? What about multiple items in the trolley that are the same ie 3 bags of chips?

aronde said :

And why is it that at Aldi the checkout person can literally ‘throw’ items across the scanner and they can register a price but at Woollies and Coles they tend to pick up an item, look for a barcode, scan it, hang on to it for a second or so and see if it has registered or something and then put it in a bag. Multiply that process by each individual item and it is no wonder they have long queues that move slowly. The Aldi turnover by comparison is pretty damn quick even allowing an extra couple of minutes to pack up your items.

If they replaced the barcode system with RFID stickers it would work much faster you could have your entire trolly scanned in an instant without touching any of the items. We use RFID for our parts and assets now and its great items can be picked up by hand scanners or fixed ones at distance of 5m.

@ aronde
“And why is it that at Aldi the checkout person can literally ‘throw’ items across the scanner and they can register a price but at Woollies and Coles they tend to pick up an item, look for a barcode, scan it, hang on to it for a second or so and see if it has registered or something and then put it in a bag”

That’d probably be because Aldi design their packaging to be easy to scan wherever possible- the barcode usually runs along the entire length of the product compared to the small rectangle hidden in an awkward spot on normal products.
They probably also invest in quality scanners and do regular maintenance (guessing)

Aldi’s entire business model is efficiency

You should walk to the Ainslie IGA, it’s one of the best run little supermarkets around.

Bah, ruined my /b

re busiest supermarket in Australia:

Having once worked with an Ex-manager of Woolies Dickson, its apparently the most profitable Woolworths in Australia on an annual basis, and he was very proud to claim that title.

Lots of factors probably accumulate to make the total, but you can apparently mix and match all sorts of things once you have a achieve the critical mass of customers.

lines happen; stop being precious and suck it up. how exactly would you fix the problem? most stores roster checkout chicks on the basis of how many transactions go through the tills at a given time and then keep a few people working elsewhere in the store who can help out when nessecary….theres not terribly much more you can do about it.

if you want to avoid lines go shoppping early in the morning, avoid 4pm, 5pm and weekends like the plague and if you do get stuck in a queue dont harrass the kid who serves you, they’ll just make mistakes which will slow it up even more. if you want to make complaints the best way to do it is to ring up later on (managers are normally working registers when its busy and can’t really deal with complaints then and there.) but be warned if you that there is not much that can be done to solve the problem

Bugalugs. That is the most derogatory and ignorant thing I have read about a socio-economic class in a long time.
I also live in Ainslie. Maybe your one of those yuppies who moved into Ainslie with a luxury 4WD? You can obviously afford the petrol to drive to Woden for shopping.
The reason we “integrate the lower socio economic groups into every suburb” is actually to make snobs like you uncomfortable – so put your prejudices aside and let people lieve thier lives. Maybe we should live in a segregated community?

Farout. “Maybe the checkout chicks have buggered off on paid maternity leave?”
That’s impossible, you can’t get pregnant like that.

I live in Ainslie and instead of the <5 minutes drive to Dickson Woolies I drive to Woden (I prefer to avoid Belconnen at all cost)

Dickson is a microcosm of all that is wrong with Canberra. It is not the lines or the poorly designed store that does my head in, it is the undesirables and low lives that seem to use the store and hang around the area in general.

Why in Canberra do we need to integrate the lower socio economic groups into every suburb. In Sydney and Melbourne you can avoid particluar suburbs and avoid the undesireables.

In Canberra every suburb has there scum quota and it is impossible to avoid? Dickson unfortunately has a higher than average quota

maybe the checkout chicks have buggered off on paid maternity leave?

ainslie IGA have the BEST cooked chooks. Tactics: order a big pile o chips at Theos takeaway. Then off to IGA for chooks. Back to Theos to collect swag o chips. = Dinner.

I used to live in Watson and continously used Dicko for groceries, it was never a pleasant experience, then we moved to belconnen and started using the supabarn in Kaleen. Glorious selection, better prices, just a nicer way to shop…I stopped into Dickson for a few things on my way to a dinner party and they had run out of…APPLES and bananas…when I asked where all the fruit was..I was told they had run out.

Kind of funny – until I paid $9 for a punnet of strawberries which was labelled $4 (didn’t realise til I got to the car).

but the longer the lines, the more time for people watching… par excellence at woolies, my friends.

but i second the ainslie iga vote.

And why is it that at Aldi the checkout person can literally ‘throw’ items across the scanner and they can register a price but at Woollies and Coles they tend to pick up an item, look for a barcode, scan it, hang on to it for a second or so and see if it has registered or something and then put it in a bag. Multiply that process by each individual item and it is no wonder they have long queues that move slowly. The Aldi turnover by comparison is pretty damn quick even allowing an extra couple of minutes to pack up your items.

The slowness of Dickson Woolworths is probably something to do with the slowness of the staff there. I swear it is a sheltered workshop or something.

As a Downer resident and living within walking distance of Dickson Woolies, I do most of my shopping at IGA in Ainslie. They are actually cheaper with a lot of items & there fruit & veg are usually of better quality. They are often busy but can still manage to get people in & out quickly. The staff are always helpful and even carry the elderly’s bags to their cars for them.

Green Frogs, NONE absolutely NONE of the supermarkets I have been to in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane are as bad as Dickson. Yes I have seen lines almost as long as Dickson but they move quickly as they have all registers manned.

I have NEVER seen every register manned at Dickson, no matter how busy it is. I’ve never seen more then 6 regular registers open when I think they have 12. I have never seen more then 6 express registers open and I think they have 8. Once I was there when there were only 3 regular registers open and each had a line of at least 4 trolleys waiting, The express line also only had 3 registers and the line for it was past the fruit & veg.

I know a few people who work there and even they have told me that management don’t care when people complain because they are still shopping there and doing a roaring trad. Why waste more money by employing more staff? Just exploit the ones you have!

Do as pug206gti said and vote with your feet.

Never put up with long lines. Complain, abandon your shopping, go elsewhere, but don’t “suck it up” or whatever trite dismissal is the current trendy one to use.

Queanbeyan is an interesting case study, as within walking distance of each other they have Woolies, Coles, aldi and mother natures. The latter is more of a deli/fruit and veggie, but they also stock a small number of toileteries. you can almost do your whole shop there, and the lines are tiny.

Coles used to have whopping lines. I complained, I noticed when it was bad others taking the feedback forms also. And often lots of abandoned trolleys and baskets near the checkouts. Woolies wasn’t much better but their express checkouts had a “bank line” which moved fast.
Aldi was variable, but they had a distressing habit of closing checkouts when the lines were so long, they interferred with shopper traffic around the store. Coles had this problem too.

Woolies did a big refurb, and now they seem much busier. And they got rid of the bank line for the express, so now they have long slow lines for individual express lanes. I sent off a complaint about that, and the result was a whiny phone call from the store manager, and absolutely nothing changed. So I don’t shop there. Sometimes I’ll pop my head in to see if it’s worth going in, but it never is. They even have lines in the grog shop.

In the meantime, things have improved at Qbn Coles. I notice they open more checkouts faster, and will allow checkouts to remain open when there’s no one currently at them (that doesn’t last long). A huge improvement.

Manuka Coles also tends to have shorter lines, and more open checkouts. I shop there at various times of day and evening and it’s always noticeable that they have a lower tolerance for lines.

They’re soon to open a Mother Natures at Brand Depot, next to Jim Murphy’s. That might be interesting, I wonder if people heading home to Gunghalin or out to northern ACT/NSW will stop there for groceries?

all these tales of unnecessary driving should attract a few obnoxious greenies to this post soon…

Moved from Brisbane to ACT (Watson) a few years back and did not take me long to realise Woollies Dickson was terrible. It did not seem to mater what time I went. I even complained to the manager when once it took me 32 minutes from the time I got in the queue to the time I got to the checkout to be served! He apologised and said they were in the process of employing more staff. Seems they are still ‘in the process’ of doing that!

When we lived at Watson I travelled to Gungahlin Coles up Flemington Rd. Never any people there and could always park underground right next to the lift (always handy with the little kiddies). And coming from Qld having a grog aisle right next to the fruit and veg was very inspiring! It may be a bit busier now though with all the extra population up that way.

Well, if dickson woolies is supposebly the busiest supermarket in australia (positively sure about that? i’m sure its the busiest in act..but have you ever been to the big smoke – aka sydney or melbourne?) then yeah, its going to have long lines. Believe it or not!!!

I heard a rumour that Dickson Woolies are now doing passport applications.

http://the-riotact.com/?p=7669

Vote with your feet.

When I was an inner-norther it took just a few months to realise that Dickson Woolies is a painful experience, and driving a few kilometres to another supermarket was better for all concerned. And unless you don’t drive, you’re pretty well spoiled for choice.

Dickson to Kaleen Supabarn – 6km (Apparently Supabarn prides itself on higher staffing levels, as reported by the ACCC)
Dickson to Jamo Coles – 8km (Which I believe is new and spiffy now)
And I guess you could go to Civic Supabarn too.

When we lived in Campbell we took up Woden Coles as our regular being only a few kilometres further, less traffic lights, and deliciously wide aisles (including one full of grog!), bypassing Manuka for largely the same reasons as Dickson.

So go when it’s less busy and the lines are shorter. Or go to a different supermarket. If you keep going, and whinging, well there isn’t much point in them changing, is there?

There already is competition – it’s the nice man who runs the fruit stall around the corner, unless you are restricted to processed foods for ‘dietary’ reasons 😉

Scottie_517,

having an Aldi at kippax doesn’t help lines at Kippax woolies.
Having a coles in belconnen doesn’t help woolies in belconnen have shorter lines.