{"id":174111,"date":"2017-05-10T08:29:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-10T06:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=174111"},"modified":"2017-05-10T08:29:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-10T06:29:00","slug":"shoprite-pick-n-pay-spar-and-woolworths-being-investigated-by-competition-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/174111\/shoprite-pick-n-pay-spar-and-woolworths-being-investigated-by-competition-commission\/","title":{"rendered":"Shoprite, Pick n Pay, Spar and Woolworths being investigated by Competition Commission"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">A major investigation into South Africa&#8217;s multi-billion rand grocery retail sector is currently underway at the Competition Commission following claims that the country&#8217;s four largest retailers &#8211;\u00a0Shoprite, Pick n Pay, Spar and Woolworths have developed a choke-hold on the market.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">The four largest supermarket chains operating in South Africa, collectively account for more than 90% of the market, said the Commission. These firms are able to operate as grocery anchor tenants in shopping centres and malls of various sizes.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">However, there has been growing concern from smaller operators that the big 4&#8217;s strength has prevented other competitors from entering the market.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">Public hearings are currently underway in Cape Town with the Commission&#8217;s\u00a0inquiry probing six major problem areas. These include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li data-bind=\"text: $data\">The impact of the expansion, diversification and consolidation of national supermarket chains on small and independent retailers;<\/li>\n<li data-bind=\"text: $data\">The impact of long term exclusive leases on competition in the sector;<\/li>\n<li data-bind=\"text: $data\">The dynamics of competition between local and foreign owned small and independent retailers;<\/li>\n<li data-bind=\"text: $data\">The impact of regulations, including inter alia municipal town planning and bylaws on small and independent retailers;<\/li>\n<li data-bind=\"text: $data\">The impact of buyer groups on small and independent retailers;<\/li>\n<li data-bind=\"text: $data\">The impact of certain identified value chains on the operations of small and independent retailers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Cape Town public hearings will end on Friday 12 May and will then move to Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/156659\/south-african-food-prices-expected-to-drop-in-2017-economist\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">South African food prices expected to drop in 2017: economist<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A major investigation into South Africa&#8217;s multi-billion rand grocery retail sector is currently underway at the Competition Commission following claims that the country&#8217;s four largest retailers &#8211; Shoprite, Pick n Pay, Spar and Woolworths have developed a choke-hold on the market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":158563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-174111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-active"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174111"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174145,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174111\/revisions\/174145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}