The Net starts here. A year down the track, it's old economy competitors like the German discount chain Aldi that are the new threats, and the crucial e-commerce battle may be won and lost before the stock hits the shelves. It's the online industry exchanges that promise to substantially reduce the cost of ordering and delivering goods to companies like Woolworths which could be the deciding difference, rather than customers ordering goods online. We have all the pluses as well and no-one can equal our distribution capacity. But the equation is not as simple as it appears.
Online shopping is still an uncertain business model.
Woolworths is making a slight loss on its existing online store, HomeShop, and Corbett doesn't anticipate generating any profit worth boasting about in the near future. Indeed, Woolworths's investments have much more to do with future-proofing the retailing giant than making money in the short term. Woolworths already has about 60,000 online customers via HomeShop, which operates out of nine supermarkets nationally. These stores generate between 7 and 10 per cent of their business from this facility, with strong uptake in Canberra. Corbett says that for the moment, he is satisfied with the present levels of return on the investment in that facility.