National Australia Bank this week launched its first mobile store, the Modular – a bank in a box that fits on the back of a truck, in North Lakes Queensland following flood damage to the local store.
The Modular store made its way from NAB’s customer warehouse in West Melbourne, 1800km up the Hume and Pacific Highways to Brisbane and finally parked itself in the car park of the North Lakes Westfield Shopping Centre ready for business.
The North Lakes store was due to be re-opened following renovations, but had flooded unexpectedly. Queensland Retail General Manager, Dion Crowe said that instead of delaying the store opening, the NAB team sprang into action and the Modular was open for customers at North Lakes within three days.
“We know Queensland has been doing it tough with the recent storms so when the opening of our North Lakes store had to be postponed, we didn’t want our customers to go without a NAB bank,” Mr Crowe said.
“This was the pilot of our Modular store and there’s still more testing to be done, but it’s a great feeling knowing that we have the capability to do this.”
The Modular takes approximately 90 minutes to set up, and 90 minutes to dismantle. It’s like a Smart Store on wheels, and consists of three different sections – the Sales room, the Service area and a Transactional hub.
The 24m2 container weighs approximately eight tonnes – the equivalent of seven full grown elephants – and is powered by a generator. It was designed with the customer experience in mind, and was put through its paces during several customer workshops used to test and inform the best layout.
The Modular opened at North Lakes Westfield shopping centre on Monday and will be there for customers until the permanent store can re-open.
