Supermarkets in Australia have definitely benefited in this, but some of have actually done a great deal of service and quite a lot to help people.
So I work at Woolworths in the leafy inner-east Melbourne and in Australia, about a month ago when all the panic buying started it was like working Christmas Eve every day, and this went on for about 2 weeks. My store in particular was recording sales of almost triple what we would normally be taking in this time of year, quite incredible. To have all our manned belt registers (5) open all day was a really surreal sight. It was great for us our store budget for wages was virtually unlimited, so it was great for staff in getting extra shifts, thus earning more money each week etc.
For the consumer it wasn't good. With the panic buying it left the shelves almost stripped bare. In the 6 years I've been working in my store, I'd never seen anything like it. At the peak of it, the shelves were so bare that it looked like the dieing days of the Soviet Union. It was incredible. One of my managers has seen this before and he said they panic bought in the lead up to the Y2K bug in late 1999 when people panic bought etc. Although in those days they also panic bought petrol which at the time had to be rationed. That hasn't happened there, in fact the price of fuel has come right down as there is so little demand for it with the lock down. Some retailers have unleaded petrol for as little $AUD0.88 cents per litre. The average being about b$AUD1.00 which is fantastic.
So what happened in our store pretty much happened nationally and probably also occurred in the UK, all the essentials become impossible to get. Items like toilet paper, pasta, rice, canned veg, flour, bread, long life milk, paper towel, cleaning products etc, etc. So nation wide, Woolworths implemented quantity limits on all the essentials which certainly made a difference but because the supply chain was so overstretched we just weren't getting the stock in. To help the elderly and the disabled all stored altered their trading hours to allow the first hour of opening to the elderly and the disabled and then after the first hour, the was open to the general populous.
While that seemed like a good idea, it was unfortunate that because the supply chain had collapsed deliveries of stock were either delayed by days or very limited meaning we didn't have anything on the shelves each morning that people were all trying to get. Even as a supermarket worker, getting toilet paper was sometimes impossible. Fast forward to today and there's now an oversupply... At the moment we still dedicate the first hour to the elderly and the disabled. It was interesting to see where the panic buying started on from. First it was hand sanitizer in any form and then people moved on to the next best thing and so on, so people moved on to cleaning wipes, sprays and disinfectants and then BOOM, toilet paper, paper towel and everything else. When long life milk started to become scarce, fresh milk went soon after. It really was a sight to behold to see shelves completely bare. I actually felt bad for the guys in replenishment, as soon as they'd bring out a roll cage of stock, people would try and grab things as they're stacking the shelf... They had to put toilet paper out overnight, during the day it was too dangerous, even in my store we had to employ two security guards to close the isle off while they put paper out.
So then came social distancing, well that was interesting, although our store adapted quite well actually. The Victorian State Government enacted a range of new measures that we had to comply with, so because of that we've had to limit the customer numbers in our store to less than 100 so we've had staff using a special counter app that Woolworths developed to measure numbers in store and when we reached that number people would be queued up outside. It worked quite well actually, I was surprised and 99% of people were appreciative our measures knowing it's for their general well being. My store is in an area where the average age of our customers is easily into their 60's, lots of old people in this area and the virus has been pretty bad, at least for Australian standards.
So the measures that Woolworths and our main competitor, Coles have introduced have been pretty good actually and the roll out was quite quick. In our store we put up perspex screens in front of all our registers, which are about to be added to our self serve machines too. We have closed self serve machines so that there is suitable spacing to allow for the 1.5m spaces we need to create. Every 2nd machine was closed. Not ideal as they are very popular and we get long queues, but with the shut down, most people are stuck at home, so overall it isn't too bad.
One of the positives that has come about this, and I'm really happy about this is that Woolworths is partnered with QANTAS where every time you scan your rewards card you can either have it set up to collect points which earn you an in-store credit or you set it up to earn QANTAS frequent flyer points. Well due to the shut down and the thousands of people that are now out of work, especially QANTAS employees, both Woolworths and I think Coles did too announced that they would take on an extra 20,000 employees nationally to help in store, in replenishment and in warehousing etc, as well as employees from Hotels, gaming venues and bistros that the company owns.
So in my store we have QANTAS baggage handlers working in night-fill and replenishment, we have cabin crew and other QANTAS employees working in customer service roles and also hotel staff as well, which has worked out really well. Loving having these guys about. It seems they love their new roles too which is great as they could be with us for up to a year. Some have never worked in a supermarket and never thought they'd live to see the day that they do. They've all been really good about it, no snobs or anything, they're all grateful to be working still. Some have said even when it's all over they'd love to stay on and work when they can. So that's been a fantastic outcome for some people who have been laid off.
Being an essential worker is something I never expected to be. I do feel incredibly lucky that I can still go to work each day, feel bad for so many who can't. I just want to meet all those that look down on supermarket workers when we're all still working and the snobs that look down on us are either out of work or having to work from home on reduced pay and hours.