Australia's largest retailer, Woolworths, will increasingly offer Amazon-style checkout-free self-service in stores and encourage combined online and real world buying, believing shopping preferences in the COVID-19 era have fast-forwarded consumers' appetite for digital options by years.

The company had weathered a dramatic period of extreme demand for online services as customers got used to life in lockdown, but had seen lasting changes in consumers' willingness to embrace digital channels, said the managing director of the supermarket's WooliesX digital innovation division, Amanda Bardwell.