Coles says its e-commerce sales jumped 30 per cent in 2023/24 and it will be looking to grow that percentage further, as the grocery giant transfers delivery orders from supermarkets to state-of-the-art warehouses.
The company announced on Tuesday its e-commerce supermarket sales reached $3.7 billion in the 53 weeks to June 30, up from $2.8 billion in 2022/23.
Online sales made up 9.4 per cent of all sales, up from 7.5 per cent the year before.
In July, Coles opened new automated customer fulfilment centres at Wetherill Park in NSW and Truganina in Victoria, which have begun serving next-day home delivery customers across Sydney and Melbourne.
Existing next-day home delivery orders in those cities will be gradually transitioned from supermarkets to the logistics centres through December as they reach optimal operating capacity, chief executive Leah Weckert told analysts on Tuesday.
"They are hives of activity getting ramped up and going," she said.
Coles says the centres offer customers a number of benefits: more "perfect orders" with fewer product substitutions; improved freshness as products are kept chilled during delivery; a greater product range than the average supermarket; and increased agility in trialling new products.
The centres should also reduce congestion at Sydney and Melbourne's busiest Coles stores, the company said.
Overall, Coles had $39 billion in annual sales in 2023/24, up 6.2 per cent from the slightly shorter previous financial year, or a rise of 4.3 per cent on a normalised 52-week basis.
Coles' profit rose 2.1 per cent to $1.1 billion on a normalised basis.
Greens senator Nick McKim blasted the $1.1 billion figure as "a sick joke for the millions of Australians struggling to afford food and groceries", saying it showed that what he called the "supermarket duopoly" needed to be broken up and "price gouging made illegal".
Ms Weckert emphasised in a call with reporters that Coles made less than three cents in profit for every dollar spent in its stores.
She said that meant if Coles spent its entire profit on reducing prices, they would drop just three per cent.
Ms Weckert also said a continued investment in technology was helping to reduce stock loss from opportunistic theft and organised crime.
Coles added "skip scan" cameras to another 241 supermarkets during the half-year, with 546 of its 856 supermarkets as of June 30 using the technology to cut down on accidental or intentional wrongly scanned items at its self-serve checkouts.
A total of 326 of its stores now have smart gates that open only after a customer has paid, and 455 stores are using "bottom of trolley" tech that detects when customers fail to scan large items.
"There's continuing work to do," Ms Weckert told analysts. "There are a number of challenges in terms of the environment, with the degree of organised crime that we're seeing."
Customers hit by the cost-of-living crunch were dining out less often and instead splurging on in-home meals, she said, with Coles Finest premium range and convenience meals among the highest growth categories.
Coles declared a 32 cents per share fully franked final dividend, up from 30 cents a year ago. It will pay 68 cents per share in total dividends for 2023/24, up from 66c the previous year.
Late on Tuesday afternoon, Coles shares were up 1.6 per cent to a two-year high of $18.76.
