The Warehouse confirms it's considering a major "transformation" which would lead to major in-store job losses.
Driven by the growth of online sales, it's proposing to close 11 in-store fulfilment centres which currently handle online orders and use centralised distribution centres instead. This would see 150 in-store jobs cut.
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"The business is experiencing significant online growth and is seeing changes in customer shopping patterns, all of which require the business to adapt and change itself," The Warehouse CEO Pejman Okhovat said in a statement on Monday.
"The proposed new centralised distribution model will offer customers a seamless experience with the online range being housed in a central location and supported by a world-class warehouse management system."
It's been reported that the proposed centralisation would lead to 100 new roles, but it's unclear if the 150 staff affected would be re-employed in these.
As part of its transformation, The Warehouse is also considering offshoring some of its customer services, and is testing a new rostering system.
"We have confirmed that we will be undertaking a pilot in eight of our The Warehouse stores to test how the implementation of an updated labour operating model and rosters will improve our in-store customer experience," Okhovat told Newshub.
"Until August last year, the model had remained largely unchanged for several years despite significant changes in customer expectations and the way we run our stores.
"We are working with team members in the pilot stores to understand their preferences around any updated shifts and hours."
Newshub.
