Rant about truck and partner delivery assignments… The only way to guarantee a truck is to order more than 75 items.
TL;DR The only way to *guarantee* a Woolworths-branded truck is to order 76+ items. All other orders with 75 items or less for most metropolitan postcodes on the east coast are assigned between Linfox-Woolworths trucks and partner drivers at Woolies’ discretion based on their business needs (driver availability, systemwide order volume, route optimisation, the day of the week, the number of orders in the same area at a given time, etc.).
I have noticed that there is some confusion about how orders are assigned to either a Woolworths-branded truck or a partner delivery driver (when ordered via the Woolworths app/website).
Especially for orders that are placed several days in advance, the order page will often state “Your driver details will be assigned closer to the delivery time.” Your order could be given a firm assignment to either truck delivery or partner delivery within minutes of submitting your order. It could also take hours or days before that firm assignment is made. There are things that will improve your chances of a truck delivery, but the only way to guarantee a Woolworths truck is to order 76+ items. This is not new news. This has been this way for many months now, slowly expanding across the delivery footprint.
In theory, there should be little difference between truck and partner driver deliveries, other than the absence of a refrigerated truck. And, there are many partner drivers who do their best to provide great service. But, the grim reality is that there are also heaps of partner drivers who have little care for good service or food safety.
To those that will say customers should simply go to the store and do their shopping directly… there is some truth in that for the willing-and-able population I suppose. However, complicity accepting substandard service only gives corporates more reason to dumb down service and raise fees (not that there’s a viable delivery alternative that’s any better in the supermarket racket).