"Yes – Click & Collect is FREE for all orders with no minimum purchase value. We have waived the $3 service fee for orders below $20."
Good for those want to take advantage of this Flypay deal
C&C Service Fee Waived for Orders below $20 (Was $3) @ Kmart
2040
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Allow me to share as I recently got my second job as a online dispatcher for one of the big department store. Initially I was thinking the same, how on earth can they charge someone $3 to pick up an $20 item?
Have I got some information for you!
In order to find the $20 item we need first print out the customer order, follow by either one of the 4 steps:
1: going to the reserve to find this item, if the item is in the reserve, great, job done in 3 mins, however often than not its not the case,
2: if the item is not in the reserve we then go to the shop floor to find the items, great, you find the item, thats other 5mins, however if the shop floor doesn't have it but its showing in stock, we go to step 3
3: If we cant find the stock on the shop floor we now need to go to the loading dock to look for stocks on a trolley or a stock cage, this part can take from 5mins to 20mins due to the fact all stocks are mixed and it could have more than 20-50 trolley or cages at one time, say we are able to find it in a loading dock or trolley or a stock cage, that's another 10 - 20 mins, however if we still cant find the item, then we have to dig through the pallet, which is step 4Once step 4 is done we then need to pack the items in buble wrap or box (and these packaging items does cost the company money), and then we need to print out the pick up label, inform the customer your item is ready to pick up, as well as locating the item in the pick up area. All that can take another 5 -10mins per order.
Also when the customer come and pick up the order, whoever at the counter needs to go to the Pick Up area, locate the stock and walk back to the customer and process on the counter for collection, 5ms minimum and it can take upto 10 - 15 mins if there is too many Surname start with D.
As you can see it can vary from 2mins to 20mins just to find that item and other 5 - 10mins to prepare it and another 5 mins to process the pick up.
So for every order if it goes very smoothly the minimum time required including packaging and all the admin stuff it takes at least 8mins per order (this is provided there is no step 2 3 4) not including the person processing the pick up at the time.
Now I am paid $28 an hour, do you still think the $3 is unreasonable?
Funny though.
If you can't find an item quickly, it's the problem of the store for not storing/sorting items correctly.
And you are paid $28 by your employer to work in an hour, so if you don't do this, you will do another thing, and you are still paid $28.When you run a big business you will know micro managing is the toughest of the all, also the other thing is these days many customers just pick up the item on the shelf, decided not to buy it but never put back in its rightful place, which is step 2.
Makes my job a lot harder as we now have customers waiting to pick up the item, the system is showing we still have items, but we cant located it anywhere in the store because people pick it up, not buying and put them in whatever the place they feel like.
@Taron: I am just sharing what I do. To give you a preceptive on what's like working in the inside. Don't shoot the messenger.
Agree their inventory system is just rubbish.
This charge is the same as charging booking fees for movie tickets.
Sure they need to pay for hosting the infrastructure but it's much cheaper than having staff at ticket booth
Rather than passing savings companies decided to make more out of it. So it's pure greed.
You can already ask Kmart staff to find an item for you. You just say, “can you find this?” And then they disappear for 20 minutes. I don’t think they’re searching for the item though.
"Do you have any of these in stock?"
"Let me check out the back for you." (Woohoo, another smoko!)Good to see you back, Savas.
Sounds just as ridiculous as Coles/Woolies picking for home delivery by sending someone around a store with a trolley and a list. The lack of innovation by these giant companies is problematic and suggests a deep culture problem.
The issue really is you can't just click a button and build large autonomous distribution and fulfillment centres at a click of a button.
Home delivery and click and collect demand rose exponentially during the height of lockdowns and having these admittedly inefficent process was the best way to meet the demand in a timely manner to ensure all Australians could safely receive their essentials, leveraging existing strengths in network and assets.
Now the argument could've been made that Coles/Woolworth should've been more prepared with more centralised distribution and fulillment centres but the reality is it's really hard to sell an idea to the board and execs of spending literally hundred of millions if not billions on a fancy DC and FC when so little people used online shopping services prior to the pandemic.
In reality the manual process was more of a beta for the Coles/Woolworth to sort out their online processes and IT infrastructure before investing in a more automated process. As with any development plan you take it one step at a time and try not to do a big bang and change 50 million things at once. I don't think anyone would've predicted how exponential the growth has been over the 2 years in eCommerce for groceries.
So insummation these inefficeint processes are not because of a lack of innovation or a deep culture problem, it's purely because the uptake was simply unforeseen prior the pandemic which meant there was a nonexistent business case prior to the pandemic and building large infrastructure proejcts, espeically when trying to take advantage of robotics and the latest technology takes time
@proxyalex: Disagree, the economy of scale derived from specialized and/or centralized distribution is hardly a new concept, not even slightly new, I've seen programmed picking completed by much, much smaller industries than Coles/Woolies over 10 years ago.
And I don't think the grocery home delivery was as anemic as you are suggesting pre-pandemic. At least in the Capital cities. Not that I don't appreciate the jobs created, but companies like Amazon that have already figured out this stuff are gonna eat them alive if they don't get their act together.
The deep culture problem I am suggesting has also manifested in things like the Masters disaster and the giant wage theft bills both companies have. Maybe there is some other reason their home delivery hasn't been centralized and specialized in the capitals, but it does just seem strange to just simply send a staff member out onto the supermarket floor with a trolley.@tonka: Let's break this down:
Disagree, the economy of scale derived from specialized and/or centralized distribution is hardly a new concept, not even slightly new, I've seen programmed picking completed by much, much smaller industries than Coles/Woolies over 10 years ago.
That is indeed true, however this fails to take into account the convenience factor of supermarkets and the reason why localised pick and packing occurs for Coles/Woolworth, it's so customers don't have to drive longer than 5 minutes to pick up their groceries (that's the pick up side). Home delivery I agree it isn't the most efficeint process and the supermarkets chains are moving towards a more centralised appraoch in areas where there is a business case (i.e. NSW Lidcombe online fulfilment and NSW Mascot online fulfilment for Woolworths).
Speaking about efficency is it really more efficient to have a massive centre pick and packing orders and having a seperate store inventory to do all the picking and packing for the whole region in one area then sending those orders to the store to be picked up. How much truck space is wasted doing this as hundred of individuals orders is bound to leave more empty space than consolidated pallets, how much agility do you lose in ensuring to delays are localised rather than region specific and what happens when that facility reaches a bottleneck. Although it might be more efficeint you lose a lot of flexibility with this appraoch. And why I'm focusing on pick up is a lot of eCommerce demand has been driven by this channel because customers have cars they just don't want to expose themselves to covid potentially in the shopping experience.
Once again although more efficient it might not justify the capital invested given how low the volumes were prior to the pandemic.
And I don't think the grocery home delivery was as anemic as you are suggesting pre-pandemic. At least in the Capital cities. Not that I don't appreciate the jobs created, but companies like Amazon that have already figured out this stuff are gonna eat them alive if they don't get their act together.
Okay let's look at some numbers then:
Woolworths (Australian Food in the financial report) Online Sales
2017: $846m, 2.3% penetration
2018: $1.1b, 3% penetration
2019: $1.3b, 4.1% penetration
2020: $2.0b, 6.3% penetration
2021: $3.5b, 7.9% penetrationBased on these figures (and you're welcome to verify them yourself in the financial report, only 2017 is back calculated) clearly onlines sales/e-commerce represented a realtively small amount of sales pre-pandemic and remember these are sales, not profit so we don't even know if these e-commerce are profitable given the additional costs assocaited with e-commerce chanels. Comparing to amazon is very unfair given they serve two very different product categories. Amazon is very good for shelf stable products and they have an extremely refined supply chain and last mile delivery that make it very hard for Woolworth and Coles to compete, however the reason why you still see people going to Coles or Woolworths is because of fresh food, meat and frozen products. Cold chain logistic, espeically last mile is very very costly and I doubt anyone can do it profitably unless we're using drone delivery (but that's at least 5 years away, optimistally). Furthermore the Woolworth and Coles network is more extensive especially for rural and regional areas than amazon, in suburban areas its probably negligible.
The deep culture problem I am suggesting has also manifested in things like the Masters disaster and the giant wage theft bills both companies have.
If we're talking about a broader culture issue such as ones mentioned above rather than specifically innovation and culture, then yes I agree. But this is a broader topic about corporate governance, corporate social responsibility that isn't exclusicve to Coles and Woolworth and seems to be a broader issue amongst a large proportion of blue chip companies not only in Australia but globally. I think the only real solution is for the shareholders to hold the board to account to ensure these externalities are always considered in decisions being made.
The Masters disaster I can understand why WOW decided to do it, if you ever look at the proportion that Bunnings contributed to Wesfarmer's overall bottom line you can see why WOW wanted a slice of it, however it was so poorly executed, especially with that partnership with Lowes in the US.
Maybe there is some other reason their home delivery hasn't been centralized and specialized in the capitals, but it does just seem strange to just simply send a staff member out onto the supermarket floor with a trolley.
I've mentioned it in my first reply: having these admittedly inefficent process was the best way to meet the demand in a timely manner to ensure all Australians could safely receive their essentials, leveraging existing strengths in network and assets. Coles and Woolworths were really using their existing network and assets to meet the changing demands of Australian during a pandemic. I don't know if you've ever worked in a place during a crisis but being agile in your response is critical. Leveraging the existing store network to fulfil online orders was the quickest way they could respond to the demand, especially given the demand for it has tripled in the past three years. They're not going to limit themselves , losing orders to their competitors and potentially cutting millions of Australian from their essentials because a fulfilment centre hasn't be built, they're going to try to fulfil it the best they can given the circumstances. However automated fulfilment centres are in the pipeline for both Coles and Woolworth so maybe in 5 years time you won't see any workers doing the pick up.
Also this argument is on the premise that these fulfilment centres are more automated, because I think even with a centralised fulfilment centre, the labour horus associated with it would be same regardless if it's picked in a store or in a fulfilment centre if you think about it. The process would be:
supplier —> Distribution Centre to break the palette —> Fulfilment Centre/Store —> Customer (eiher pick up or delivery). It's still the same amount of steps whether it's picked in a fulfilment centre or store, unless there's automation in the fulfilment centre stage.
You can see why Amazon is winning
Good to know that kmart is putting customer first going to this length to fulfil the an order. However is this simply unsustainable if you always need to got to step 3 and 4 and small margin items…..
They should just consider cutting step 3 and 4 for cheap items, and make the online stock level align with only the floor and reserve stock. This will be not that much different to you going into the physical and look for the item yourself. …..
I dont work for Kmart, however I can assure you on average, more than 40% of the orders we need to go to at least step 3, sometimes step 4.
Having only worked there for a few weeks and I can already see the system struggling. Its even more struggling when we start at 4am with 5 staff and all of a sudden 2 of them calls in sick which leaves 3 of us to do the work. Very tough job as we are judged on the completion rates. My worst pick is 103 item in one order book and I was only able to find 71.
This was my immediate thought.
Goods sitting at a goods inwards dock should not be showing as available to pick.
As a customer if it's in stock online it should be on the shelf, therefore there should be a bare minimum in their business system to identify bulk stock in the warehouse /storeroom vs stock on the shelf.Sounds like their inefficient systems and poor stock control have caught up with them and they've been passing the cost on to the customer. Now they've worked out that that doesn't fly with customers in this day and age and are back tracking.
Getting paid $28 an hour to take items off shelves and put them in a box sounds great to me.
You make it sound so dramatic. Just about every company that's bigger than a lemonade stand has click and collect and barely anyone else charges. Used to work dispatch at a company with a 30,000 item catalogue of machine parts where the difference was 1mm diameter.. Got paid $23/hr. Your job sounds like a breeze in comparison.
That $23/$28hr thing is the difference between a casual job and a permanent part-time or full-time job.
@decc0: No, 2 month casual, and I was wrong actually about my pay, its $26.90 an hour (Casual), not $28
Everyone forgets the old argument "they'll just replace you with robots" but Amazon already does and then theres companies trying to compete at that level with traditional staff mechanisms. The true problem lies where they need to reevaluate how these mechanisms operate within their current scope or change them, not charge the consumer extra because of their laziness to incorporate more advanced mechanisms into their current systems.
Appreciate that it takes time to find an order but a well run store should be able to find these orders pretty quickly. If staff can't find the products what chance do customers have?
Also, I'd say the real cost is the opportunity cost of the customer not browsing the store and potentially buying numerous other products along the way instead of just picking up their order at the counter and nothing else.
This is how I used to feel, when I used to work retail I knew everything in my section and where it was, but then again I didn't have to pick orders one item at a time for 10,000 ozbargainers either. The problem is made worse by overworked retail staff blaming management for placing undue pressure on them to manage this "service". But this isn't a failure of staff to operate at a new level unanticipated but managements failure to comprehend the scope of work involved. It's penny pinching on the end of these conglomerates posting billion-dollar profits.
You shouldn't be paid $20/hr for that.
"Reasonableness" doesn't matter. Kmart can absorb these costs into its pricing structure just like it does other costs like rent, electricity, etc. If Kmart charges $3 fee and Amazon doesn't then customers will walk.
I guess the problem would surround whether or not, they want you to do more work yet be paid the same amount with this push towards making click and collect more popular. But then again the other problem is the state of the labour market for retail is at , I have no idea.
Exploiting labour is just another was of saying employing people. Of course the employer is making use of the employees labour.
This has been there for over a month
Amazing deal, they don't charge us anymore for the privilege of spending money there.
I still find it weird how they charge for C&C. It's more of an incentive for them to not charge it ever since you're picking up the item, you're most likely to spend more money passing items when you walk to the back of the shop to customer service desk to pick up the item.
It's most likely faster to just get the item yourself in-store and self-serve check out.
I don’t know about others but I just click and collect when I know an item is oos at most stores and still have some stock nearby. Makes me assured that I’m not panicking that the item will sell out by the time I have the chance to go to that store.
Yep same or when its low stock and I dont want to drive all the way out to the store to find out they are actually out of stock.
Obviously feeling the heat 😂😂
The real deal is not having to wait in the long Christmas checkout lines and going to the lay-by desk to pick up your items
Except there’s usually 10 people waiting at the click n collect with 1 serving.
Mean while, for $59 you can get unlimited express shipping, some free ebooks/comics, music, TV and movie streaming with Prime. Australian retailers just don’t get it.
Prime has to be one of the best things I've done with my money imo. Don't know why I didn't hop onto it sooner.
Theres also twitch prime subscription. If you have a friend you want to support, you are paying only $11 per year for prime benefits, and they get the rest of the value as the subscription 'fee' from Twitch Prime.
Nailed it. Can't beat Amazon.
Except Amazon doesn't exactly have a massive selection. Most things I shop for (small electronic items) are not available on Amazon and often if they are, not great value. Now on the other hand, when stuff is there, it's great. In turn cancelled my Prime as was not using it enough. I went with Ebay and crap express Auspost and only due to variety of avail items.
Kmart is just full of low quality Anko crap
Yes this, normies don't understand that Amazon is not really great when you buy heaps of little stuff during the week for work/business.
Ebay has been the most reliable and actually genuinely cheap with Ebay Plus.
I think Ozbargain has distorted what Amazon really looks like when you don't rely on something making front page posts highlighting the cheapest. Amazon is always middle-expensive unless they're forced to price match a competitor or their algorithm feels the need to randomly purge stock.
@plmko: EBay plus doesn't much value, still slow postage. Express post is not really fast. And your membership fee is only for special discounts for plus members and free delivery inclusions otherwise
If something goes wrong with your product. Good luck trying to get that sorted out with different sellers.
Amazon returns are seamless and the best out there with no hassles as long as it's prime labelled item. You can also have invoices easily for tax claims.
Not every eBay seller will give you that
I should've qualified -> Can't be Amazon for their customer service, delivery, value for money when bundled with Prime TV etc. Sure, the range isn't quite there yet but it's early days for Amazon in Australia and they've already vastly improved in the past couple of years. I can see them surpassing many of the established bricks and mortar retail stores and other online retailers in Australia in the next few years.
And you know this only happens here considering that as a deal because of crappy delivery from other couriers, slow postage via Auspost. You get much faster with your Amazon flex drivers with their private cars.
In comparison this might not be needed in China or Hong Kong
We are paying to get that privilege. The rest are just bonus and bundled in
Hmmm, I clicked and collected a big order recently, thinking I'd save time shopping the threadbare shelves. Got home and found about 8 items missing, one bag had two stickers on it but only half the items. That's not including stuff that is being sent from 300km away because my local didn't have it.
Don't think I'll do it again.. if I do, I'll not trust it's all packed :(
Been 'smsing' the helpdesk.. not sure if its a chatbot or a human with pre-populated responses!!
Oh thats tough! did the store find the missing items for you in the end?
Only lodged the request on Friday.. I'll give them a few more days. Lucky it's KMart and it's not a stack of money :D
You need to follow up rather than letting them contact you.
Yes check your order before you leave, drove home the other day and was missing an item. Had to go all the way back which defeats the purpose of click and collect as its suppose to be convenient. Also we had to collect at the service desk which was at the very back of the store…. Seriously kmart has the worst click and collect system I've seen from any retailer.
Can someone explain the ridiculous decision to put the checkouts in the middle of the store, thus requiring me to then show my receipt at the door when exiting? If the checkouts remained where they are in every other store, at the front, then perhaps that door person could be better used to find items for C&C orders… Saving costs and perhaps making the unpalatable $3 C&C cost a moot point.
Someone said to me the other day is to attract more shoppers in the store by putting items in the front to get them interested so they come into the store to shop.
How much truth is there i dont know. I might ask someone next time I shop at kmart. Last time I was there the shelf are not much to be look at as its half empty. lol
That's just basic consumer psychology. It doesn't force the checkouts to be pushed into the middle though.
Chains that spring to mind like Woolies, Coles and Costco are able to achieve both stock and checkouts at the front - and they're all doing fine.
I love shopping at kmart but hated the middle checkout because:
- Lost count on how many time I walked to the front then realised and have to walk back to the middle to the store to pay;
- Checkout line spirals around the checkout section and you basically have to circle the entire checkout section before you can pay for the item;
- People jump the line ribbon and cut in front of me while I "circle the checkout";
- After paying the item I need to proof to the attendant at the entry that I'm not a shoplifter.
The whole set up at Kmart is customer hostile. If the new layout and heavily reliance on self serve checkouts increases theft then maybe they need to change how and where customers pay.
When leaving Kmart (, Big W and Target etc) I walk straight past the "greeter" and pretend they don't exist when they ask to check my receipt/bag.
They can't stop you from leaving the store unless they have a reasonable suspicion that you've committed a crime. Refusing to show your receipt/bag isn't enough for them to detain you. They can call the cops, but while they're busy doing that another 20+ customers walked straight out the door with no checks.
I don't understand why more people don't object to the self checkouts. I don't have a problem scanning my stuff. But the appauling ergonomics and forcing double handling to weigh everything is insulting and achieves nothing if a thief has an IQ over 20.
This isn’t the flex you think it is, why be an arsehole to some kid just doing their job?
In my experience it is always an adult on the door. I'm not being an arsehole. Making a scene would be an arsehole act. The law says they can ask, the law also says I can refuse. Walking straight through avoids a confrontation.
The real arseholes are the people who in head office who think this is a good idea.
Great move.
Now the 3 hours wait at the C&C counter will increase to 20 hours
You get an extra 17 hours waiting time. Such a bargain!💩
Cool … use flypay to get $5 item
Just a heads up buying bargain clothing online from Kmart. I spent 30 minutes buying 11 items of clothing that were 'available' in the sizes I wanted. When I got to the checkout part of the Kmart website, 9 items weren't available online. Basically, don't waste your time
Hah, at least you got told before at checkout. A recent order I did just took my money and told me 3 days later that stuff was out of stock. Probably on a shelf in a different department as is standard when you go into a Kmart store.
Actually, I've found they are available just not available in the same order. It seems to me the stock you are ordering needs to be available from the same store. But later comes in multiple dispatches from different places anyway. So add the items most important to you first then try checkout. And then if they become unavailable as you add to your order remove the items you added last and refresh and they may come available again.
Yes it's very annoying.
Went to buy something during lockdown and saw the fee then laughed my ass off and closed firefox.
Do you really need to book a pick up time in order to click and collect? Ordered something the other day and got an SMS saying I need to book a time to pick it up? What joke is this? I just want to drop in whenever I'm near the area rather than lock myself to a specific time.
I don't think so. I still had to wait 5 minutes after arriving and giving my order number for someone to bring my stuff from the back. C&C is not reliable at all for those in a hurry.
Following Aerith's logic Kmart and other retailers could introduce a dizzying array of charges: Store entry fee, a fee for lighting in stores, a fee to ask questions about a product, a checkout fee, a storage fee.
If you think that sounds crazy just have a think about what the Click and Collect fee was really for. What about the Costco membership fee? Isn't that a fee to allow you to shop with Costco?
They are, of course, free to charge whatever fees they think they can get away with just as we are free, as consumers, to shop somewhere else. If consumers keep exercising this right in the face of fees they do not consider reasonable then we have a balance. But the moment we all give up and go along with it every other retailer will introduce similar fees and pretty soon it will be a race to see who can introduce the most and the most imaginative fees.
Personally I would never pay for the privilege of being permitted to shop at a retailer (Costco and similar memberships) and I would never pay a fee for Click and Collect which I consider part of the cost of doing business.
"… a race to see who can introduce the most and the most imaginative fees". I think the major banks won that race years ago… now they are doing exactly what K-Mart is doing for this fee: back-tracking in the face of consumer hostility. Your post really says it all… the only surprise in this whole saga, for me, was that K-Mart has been able to get away with this charge previously. Considering how little they have that is worth buying anyway, their customers must really be a compliant bunch!
What about prime fee tho? That's a fee
Prime's subscription gives you free 1-2 day delivery with no minimum order, access to Prime Video, Music, Twitch sub and exclusives etc.
Costco's subscription just lets you enter.
Kmart's C&C fee just lets you pick up an order.Excellent point decc0
Costco's membership does provide you with access to their fuel pumps too - which in the last few months has been a good 20+ cents cheaper per litre than other bowsers.
I feel like big businesses charge a click and collect fee for small items as its a waste of time and resources to dedicate an employee for example to go pick one box of chocolates or a small toy. The whole deal with retailers is they want you to go INSIDE the store and buy more things than you would've and c&c kinda negates that. Also if you're buying a pack of batteries from a store like IKEA, the item could be located a mile away is it really worth it for someone to go pick one pack of batteries which could take them 15 mins just to go to the aisle. From a business perspective c&c fee for small orders makes a lot of sense.
By nature, these stores aren't meant to keep too much inventory out at the back so you really can't compare Kmart with Amazon. Their purpose is first and foremost to put whatever comes in on the shop floor and shelves on show for people to buy. Online is a just a side business to keep up with the competition. Just appreciate it for what it is.
Bugger this. I'm going back to the condom posts.
Charging a fee to collect is a rip-off. It's the same as dodgy banks charging a monthly account fee.
Ordered $5 item last night 11.40pm, this morning ready to pickup at 10am.
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Wow, what a shocker LOL! It was never even to be charged in the first place understaffed, labour exploiting satanists.