Woolworths opens Customer Fulfilment Centre in Adelaide amid online shopping surge

Keswick in South Australia is now home to the state's first Woolworths Customer Fulfilment Centre, a large-scale warehouse designed exclusively to process online shopping orders. 

The facility is the size of two football fields, stocks more than 25,000 products, and aims to serve about 15,000 customers weekly through same-day and next-day home delivery services.

The centre represents Woolworths' response to a significant increase in online shopping demand.

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The company reported a 120 per cent rise in online orders over the preceding four years.

"It operates a lot differently than a normal supermarket and how we've normally sort of run our day to day operations," manager Luke Oliver said.

Customers are unable to enter the facility, with the exception of direct-to-boot services in the car park.

Jarrad Cassebohm, a Woolworths customer, noted the efficiency of the service.

"I was their first customer ... there's 12 lanes, it looks like a grand prix pit lane," he said.

"I love it, it saves me heaps of time, it's really convenient," another customer, Margaret Dow, said.

The trend towards online grocery shopping is not limited to Woolworths. Coles has also experienced substantial growth in the area, reporting an increase of nearly 25 per cent in online orders over the past 12 months.

Aldi has recently introduced a home delivery option, signalling the increasing importance of online retail in the grocery sector.

"We can see it in the numbers, more and more people are transitioning to that easy option," Oliver said.

Woolworths says less than 1 per cent chance of products at the warehouse are out of stock, and the operation is staffed by a team of 400 employees.

This article was produced with the assistance of 9ExPress.