Life In Australia

All of our groceries for the Christmas period were delivered today. It was great to know that I won’t have to fight my way through the crowded supermarket with two crazy kids!

We had a quick visit to the shopping centre to buy a few last minute things that I couldn’t order online and it was heaving. A lot of people started their Christmas holiday today and it seemed like they had ALL decided to go shopping. There were no free tables available in the food court. The line at the post office stretched all the way to the back of the post office and out of the door, so I decided to buy stamps at the newsagent’s. In Borders bookstore the line extended further back than I have ever seen it – fortunately I wasn’t buying anything there. I didn’t go in the supermarkets – I can only imagine how busy it was in there – it was bad enough on Friday.

The two major supermarket chains here – Coles and Woolworths – both have online ordering and delivery services in the major cities in Australia. I tried the Woolworths’ service first but gave up before placing my first order because they did not offer lots of things that I buy regularly.

Disappointed, I tried Coles and found that they offered almost everything that I needed. Coles doesn’t offer its whole range online but I find that there are only a few things that I need to buy separately regularly, so the Coles service is good enough for me.

The Coles Online customer service is excellent, too. On the few occasions on which an item has not been delivered or has not been in a great condition, they have credited my account with the price of the item immediately. Also, on the one occasion on which my groceries were delivered outside the time frame I had booked, they rang me in advance to say that they would be late and gave me the reason why (a lift had broken down).

Another nice thing about Coles Online is that you sometimes get freebies with your order. We got a whole box of packets of cheese sauce that you can put on top of vegetables to encourage children to eat them. These were great for my daughter as she is sometimes a fussy eater. A couple of weeks ago we got a pack of four mango sorbets as a freebie and we all enjoyed eating them.

So, I am more than happy with the Coles Online service. I will continue to use it and avoid those crowded supermarkets, especially at Christmas!

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