New luxury shopping mall opens in South Africa with a ‘shop-in-shop’ for an iconic international brand
South Africa’s largest retailer, Shoprite, has launched its first WC shop-in-shop for LEGO, as the group moves full steam ahead to open over 220 new stores in the current financial year.
One of the highlights among the new openings is the Checkers Hyper at the recently opened Winelands Square Shopping Mall in Paarl, which features the retailer’s first LEGO shop-in-shop in the Western Cape.
The Winelands Square Shopping Mall opened in November 2025, with development on the second phase of the mall currently underway and expected to be completed in April 2026.
The 20,000 square metre retail centre is anchored by the Checkers Hyper, with other Shoprite brands also featuring prominently, including Checkers Liquor, Checkers LittleMe and a Petshop Science.
Other prominent upmarket brands at the mall include La Parada, Tiger’s Milk, dermalogica, Gary Rom, Baglios, Boa Beauty, Fjall Raven, Gary Rom Man, Gerber & Co.
Notably, the Checkers Hyper accounts for a significant portion of the mall, occupying 5,670 square metres.
The hypermarket is the eighth Checkers Hyper in the province and offers a modern, full-service shopping experience with an extensive range of fresh food, groceries, general merchandise, and specialist services.
The new Checkers Hyper is also driving speciality retail offerings, with LEGO being a premium draw.
“While LEGO will undoubtedly attract shoppers of all ages with its hands-on display, customers can also explore a variety of specialist departments,” the group said.
This includes fresh and ready-to-eat meals, sushi, Kauai and Krispy Kreme, Little Me baby products, outdoor and home goods, a full-service butchery, and a fish shop.
With the opening, Checkers has also expanded its Hyper delivery service to Paarl, allowing customers to order larger items for same-day delivery through Sixty60.
The group launched the Hyper Sixty60 service in mid-2024 and has been gradually expanding the rollout to more regions across the country.
The group has also been rolling out new ‘premium’ Checkers stores and high-end FreshX concept stores to further disrupt retail trends in the country.
The latest addition to the roster is the Checkers FreshX, which opened in KZN’s La Lucia Mall in November.
Shoprite big store ambitions
The overall Shoprite group has grand ambitions for its store rollout, planning a big expansion while competing retailers are scaling down their operations.
In its latest financial results for the 2025 financial year ending in June 2025, the group reported sales of over R250 billion.
Its core South African supermarkets, Shoprite and Usave, grew turnover by 5.9%, or R6.5 billion.
Checkers also performed well, with sales up 13.8%, adding R11.6 billion to the group’s revenues.
The group saw its earnings per share increase 22.0% to 1,401.2, including discontinued operations.
The group’s total profit jumped by 21.9% to R7.6 billion, while revenue jumped by 8.6% to R257 billion. The group’s total dividend increased by 7.9% to 781 cents for the year.
The group’s growth can also be seen in its store footprint. Checkers opened 68 new outlets over the year. This included 36 LiquorShop stores.
There are now 350 supermarkets, of which 40 are large-format Hypermarkets. The group noted that the “FreshX” store format, which focuses on fresh and higher-quality food, helped win customers.
“Our strategy to continue the conversion of existing stores to our winning FreshX format, whilst opening stores in areas where we are underrepresented, remains one of our top priorities,” it said.
In South Africa, the group added 225 new stores during the year, taking the total to 2,577. For the 2026 financial year, the group aimed to open an additional 223 stores.
According to the retailer, it is well on track to meet the target with 143 new stores opened between July and November 2025 alone.
Pictures of Winelands Square Shopping Centre
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