In 1996, Woolworths became the first New Zealand supermarket to offer online shopping.
Celebrating the 30-year anniversary of that milestone in 2026, Robyn Snelgar reflects on being there at the start and picking the first order.
When Snelgar joined Woolworths in 1988, online shopping was science fiction. Starting out on the nightfill crew to earn extra cash while her young children slept at home, she worked her way through various store roles before stepping into a groundbreaking piece of New Zealand retail history.
Looking back on those early days, she remembered a process far different from today's automated, app-driven systems.
“My first memory is racing around the supermarket with a trolley, picking orders from a fax. So, you’ve just got to memorise where everything is in the store, and just pick up from the fax,” she said.
In the mid-90s, the internet was far from ubiquitous. The trial began humbly with just 100 customers, which let Snelgar and her team build a uniquely personal relationship with their digital shoppers.
At the time, neither the staff nor the public grasped how monumental the service would become. Navigating the new technology meant overcoming dial-up modems, varying web browsers, different internet service providers, and endless technical glitches to help customers log onto the website.
After moving to head office on Kerrs Road, the team helped shoppers solve these issues.
“It was really cool, but at the time, because hardly anyone had the internet, we didn’t actually realise how big it was going to be. It was just totally unknown.”
Beyond picking orders, Snelgar worked alongside colleague Richard Veber to build the operational playbook from scratch, designing the end-to-end requirements for packing orders and loading them onto delivery trucks.
The backend technology required patience; pricing and weekly specials were maintained on a central mainframe that required loading products individually.
“Specials were loaded one product at a time. It used to take me two days every week just to load specials.”
Fast forward to today, and those manual faxes and single-item updates have evolved into seamless, automated systems that process more than 160,000 online orders every week, or around eight million per year.
“It’s incredible to see what our online offering has become today after those humble beginnings,” she added.
Despite nearly three decades of rapid technological advancement, Snelgar’s loyalty to the company remained grounded in simple, human elements.
Balancing her retail career with running a farm in Ardmore, near Clevedon, Woolworths provided the flexibility she needed to raise her family and manage her land.
By the time she finished her career at Woolworths Head Office, Snelgar had clocked an extraordinary 37 years with the business. She is a regular at the Woolworths 25 Year Club events and says it is a real honour to be in the club.
Over nearly four decades, Snelgar witnessed generations of families pass through the business. When asked what made her time at Woolworths so special, she didn’t point to the pioneering e-commerce offering she helped build, but to the community behind it.
“The people you meet and the people you work with, more than anything. I made friends for life, and I took a huge amount of satisfaction from making a difference to my community.”
Learn more about Woolworths’ e-commerce journey in our latest issue here
