Supermarket giant Coles has announced its dedicated community hour will come to an end as it prepares to expand its trading hours for everyone.
From Friday 8 May, Coles said almost 200 stores will open earlier at 6am to help ease the pressure faced by all Australians, including parents and carers who are busy home schooling their children, in addition to many customers working from home.
The final dedicated community hour, which allowed elderly and vulnerable customers as well as emergency services and healthcare workers to shop exclusively at stores from 7am to 8am, will end on Thursday 7 May.
Coles Chief operations officer Matt Swindells said its community hour had been popular but now that demand for groceries and product availability were returning to more normal levels it was time to welcome all customers back whenever stores were open.
Coles has also reopened Coles Online orders, which had been dedicated entirely to elderly and vulnerable customers during the peak of demand, to all shoppers – providing another shopping option to customers who may otherwise have needed to visit a store.
“We’ve doubled our capacity in Coles Online so there is now more opportunity than ever for customers to either have their groceries delivered to their homes or collect them at their convenience,” Mr Swindells said.
“As the government begins to look at easing restrictions, customers should remember that appropriate safety practices will still apply and ask all customers to support with the same amazing collaboration we’ve seen in the past few weeks.”
