Before EFTPOS, the internet, self-service checkouts and Afterpay there was Dubbo's Big W store and on Wednesday team members and customers celebrated its 40th birthday.
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Hundreds of thousands of customers have walked through the store's doors since it opened on this day in 1979 and they have been served by thousands of staff, many of whom got their first jobs working at Big W.
From "checkout chick" to "night-fill", Carol Munday has worked in a range of roles at the store since the late 1980s.
She said back then there were no scanners, uniforms were compulsory and the order book was an actual book.
"We were big with paint and hardware and there was a mechanic shop and cafe," Carol said.
"I'm working with some of the children of the original people who were working here in the beginning."
Several former team members joined Carol and her current colleagues at the store to reminisce about the olden days and how Big W has evolved during four decades of rapid change.
We had water up to our calves but we had the store back open the next day.
- Big W store manager Sandra Dimmock
Store manager Sandra Dimmock said Big W has operated in the same location since it opened, but the area around it was completely transformed.
"We were the only ones up here [where Orana Mall is now located]," she said.
"There was no Sheraton Road and the mall was built around the Big W. "
In 1993 an expanded Orana Mall opened and the store evolved with the addition of a garden centre and new technology.
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Originally the store could not open on a Sunday and there was fiery debate about whether or not Sunday trading should be introduced in Dubbo.
"When it first started to come in we were only allowed to open the garden and hardware section," she said.
"We had to partition off the rest of the store."
Flooding caused damage to the store in 2001 and for one day the store was forced to shut its doors.
"We had water up to our calves but we had the store back open the next day," Sandra said.
Many shoppers from across Western NSW visit Dubbo's Big W store and the business has often given back to communities in need.
"We've donated a couple of pallets of water to people in Walgett," Sandra said.
"Every Thursday for a while we offered free kids books to customers who came into the store and we sent some out to Lightning Ridge."
Big W now employs about 100 people in Dubbo with several saying they hope the store remains part of the Dubbo community for another 40 years.
Woolworths Group, the parent company that owns Big W, announced it plans to close 30 Big W stores because of financial difficulties and will not say whether the Dubbo store is one earmarked for closure.
