Woolworths Northgate

Store is super easy for us — parking sometimes can be a bit of a issue — but I’m fussy where I park my car. The lay out of the shop is ok, it’s recently changed so a few things I’m still yet to find. The staff are real hit and miss — they have some really helpful and efficient staff, and then others who are just as useful as a hole in the head… Ive had ²⁄₃ «interesting» customer service experiences here — first one was last Christmas when I bought over $ 120 worth of fruit for the Christmas celebrations — the check out guy literally was throwing my fruit around like juggling equipment — I was a bit annoyed — and just asked the guy to calm down with my un-​bruised fruit before it became all mushy and bruised and he just kinda looked at me like I was asking for his first born child… Needless to say, when I see him on check outs now — I avoid him. The second was when I had my 6 year old daughter with me who was super pumped for the Dreamworks cards promotion (spend $ 20 and get a card) — we ducked into the store one day and grabbed $ 19.97 worth of stuff — the girl refused to give us a card cause we didn’t spend $ 20 or over — I asked if she would like me to give her the 0.03 cents to make the $ 20 dollar total and she just looked at me like I was the twit!!! I laughed at her and bought my daughter a Freddo Frog and we walked away with our Dreamworks card! The third time, was very simple and I wasn’t offended, however my husband was upset — one of the male staff asked what my plans for the weekend were — standard question right… Then he asked if I lived far from the store — just thought he was making conversation… Then he asked if I didn’t have plans, could he grab my name, number and address from me and we could «catch up» over the weekend — LOL! I politely replied yes, but my husband and 2 daughters would be with me and I hope that wouldn’t be to inconvenient for our «catch up» and he just shrunk away… I giggled about it and was slightly flattered — however husband didn’t think it was as funny as me!!!

The store’s location is great, and the store itself is bright and airy and nicely spaced out, so it is easy to navigate with the typical shopping trolley that wants to go in all directions at once. So far so good.
What isn’t good is that the store is unreliable in terms of stocking basic goods, they just seem to run out of things, and their buying isn’t well planned. So it is a bit hit and miss that you will get exactly what you want sometimes. This has gotten worse since Woolies have started kicking out named brands and replacing them with their «Select» range. I find that because of this, I am doing more and more of my shopping further afield at Foodlands and IGAs because they stock real brands, not just cheap nasty stuff imported from overseas.
Compounding these problems, once you have managed to gather your meagre provisions, the checkouts are not well staffed, and the express area is woefully small compared to the general shopping habits of those that go there. I dream of the day that they install more express lane checkouts, or God forbid, install self service checkouts.