Major retailer Pick n Pay has published a trading update for the 45 weeks ending 5 January 2025, showing a steady improvement in its like-for-like performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, this improvement has come at the cost of store closures across the country as part of its ‘store reset plan’ to turn the business around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pick n Pay South Africa has closed 32<\/strong> supermarkets<\/strong> during the period, including 24 company-owned stores and 8 franchise stores. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This also includes the conversion of five of its company-owned stores to franchise stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the time of last reporting (October 2024), the group had closed 24 supermarkets, including 10 corporate stores and 14 franchise stores\u2014meaning the total has increased by 8 since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This allowed the group to report like-for-like sales growth of 1.6%, and 1.9% growth for Pick n Pay South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the like-for-like comparison is not considered, sales decline by 0.4% and 0.1% at the group and South Africa levels, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the implementation of the Store Estate Reset plan resulted in total sales lagging like-for-like sales momentum, Pick n Pay said that this was a natural consequence of the planned store closures and conversions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The group embarked on a major turnaround strategy after recording an after-tax loss of R3.2 billion for the year ended 25 February 2024 (FY24).<\/p>\n\n\n\n This followed a R2.8 billion non-cash impairment on the assets of Pick n Pay company-owned stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pick n Pay Grocery recorded a R1.5 billion trading loss during the period, undermining Boxer’s R1.9 trading profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part of the turnaround involved raising funds from shareholders through a Rights Offer<\/strong><\/a>\u2014which raised R4 billion in August 2024 and was more than double oversubscribed\u2014as well as separately listing Boxer stores<\/strong><\/a>, which added another R8 billion to the pot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other big part of the turnaround was focusing on Pick n Pay stores, especially those that were loss-making, and right-sizing the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In its latest update, Pick n Pay said that as a result of improved retail discipline, its company-owned supermarkets are improving and it is encouraged by the trend over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clothing sales growth in standalone stores was 10.0% (1.7% like-for-like). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Clothing sales momentum improved in the latter 19 weeks of the Period to 10.3% (3.6% like-for-like) versus 9.8% (0.2% like-for-like) previously reported for H1 FY25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Online sales growth for the Period was 42.5%, driven by the continued growth of Pick n Pay asap! and Pick n Pay Groceries on the Mr D app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pick n Pay SA’s internal selling price inflation for the period was 2.4%, versus 3.4% for H1 FY25<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pick n Pay SA’s internal selling price inflation is significantly down from the 8.2% reported for the FY24 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Boxer stores once again proved to be the biggest success story in its results, showing 12% growth (7.7% like-for-like) in the 26 weeks ended August (H1FY25) and 11.4% (6.7% like-for-like) in the 45-week period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With Boxer stores included, group turnover was up 3.7% (2.9% like-for-like) for H1FY25, and up 3.6% for the 45-week period (3.3% like-for-like).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pick n Pay has published a trading update, including the latest number of stores it has closed over the past year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":788723,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[6655,4067],"class_list":["post-810191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-boxer","tag-pick-n-pay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810191","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=810191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":810200,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810191\/revisions\/810200"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}