{"id":811139,"date":"2025-02-11T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=811139"},"modified":"2025-02-11T07:39:36","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T05:39:36","slug":"south-africans-kiss-pick-n-pay-stores-goodbye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/811139\/south-africans-kiss-pick-n-pay-stores-goodbye\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africans kiss Pick n Pay stores goodbye"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Many South Africans had to say goodbye to their local Pick n Pay store as the retailer continued to close company-owned and franchise stores across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 4 February 2025, Pick n Pay released a trading update for the 45 weeks that ended 5 January 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results showed that Pick n Pay stores in South Africa continued to struggle, with sales declining by 0.1% over the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pick n Pay South Africa\u2019s internal selling price inflation for the period was 2.4%. This shows that the retailer is moving backwards in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main reason for the decline in sales was that Pick n Pay South Africa closed<\/a> net 32 supermarkets during the 45 weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The store closures included 24 company-owned Pick n Pay supermarkets and eight franchise stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the store closures were excluded from the numbers, Pick n Pay South Africa\u2019s like-for-like sales increased by 1.9%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although this is still below the internal selling price inflation of 2.4%, it is much better than the slightly negative growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pick n Pay highlighted that its like-for-like sales momentum in the last nineteen weeks of the reporting period improved to 3.0%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is encouraging and shows that Pick n Pay CEO Sean Summers\u2019 plan to close non-performing stores is showing promise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The store closures formed part of the turnaround plan which Summers unveiled after he took the reins at the struggling retailer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early 2024, Pick n Pay announced<\/a> it would close or convert 112 Pick n Pay stores across South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summers explained their turnaround plan involved closing 35 underperforming Pick n Pay stores and converting 70 outlets to the Boxer brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have identified many stores in critical condition due to factors like demographic changes or a problem with the shopping centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese stores will be closed. We will close and get rid of the stores that have no future,\u201d Summers said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In every subsequent update, Pick n Pay announced a significant number of company-owned and franchise store closures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pick n Pay supermarket closures<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In October 2024, Pick n Pay announced that it had closed 24 supermarkets, including 10 corporate stores and 14 franchise stores, over a 26-week period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two months earlier, the retailer said it closed 53 Pick n Pay stores across South Africa between 12 February 2024 and 25 August 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many cases, Shoprite and Checkers outlets have taken over the retail space, which Pick n Pay vacated. This is unsurprising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shoprite and Checkers are rapidly expanding their retail footprint, while Pick n Pay is scaling back to strengthen its financial performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December 2024, SA Corporate Real Estate announced it was replacing Pick n Pay supermarkets with Checkers and Shoprite stores in some of its properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SA Corporate is a JSE-listed Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) with a diversified portfolio of quality industrial, retail and residential buildings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company owns over 150 properties across South Africa with a gross lettable area of over 1.4 million square meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SA Corporate\u2019s retail portfolio includes Musgrave Centre, East Point Shopping Centre, Umlazi Mega City, Springfield Value Centre, and Bluff Towers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur retail portfolio focuses on convenience-oriented shopping centres, with a tenant mix that emphasises defensive categories,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pick n Pay is its biggest retail tenant and contributes 9.2% to SA Corporate\u2019s rental contribution, much higher than Spar\u2019s 3.8%, Woolworths\u2019 3.2%, and Shoprite Checkers\u2019 3.1%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its 2024 year-end pre-close update presentation, SA Corporate shared a strategic leasing update for its retail space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It announced that the Pick n Pay supermarket in Montana Crossing will be replaced with Checkers Emporium in Q3 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Checkers emporium will include Checkers Fresh-X, Pet Science, Checkers Liquor and Checkers Outdoor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will also replace the Pick n Pay QualiSave in the Springfield Value Centre with a Shoprite store in the second quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pick n Pay\u2019s big blunder<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Pick n Pay CEO Sean Summers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pick \u2018n Pay CEO Sean Summers said<\/a> converting traditional Pick n Pay stores to QualiSave outlets was a blunder which was \u201cabsolutely nuts\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pick n Pay launched its QualiSave initiative in August 2022 and planned to convert 40% of Pick n Pay company-owned supermarkets to Pick n Pay QualiSave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Pick n Pay told investors in 2022 that Pick n Pay QualiSave was a hit, Summers revealed it was an unmitigated disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explained Pick n Pay always had a presence in lower-income areas and that the QualiSave project made them take their eye off the ball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnfortunately, the focus was taken off the Pick n Pay stores. We had this really, really poor thought about QualiSave being able to compete in those marketplaces,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople were highly offended, and I don\u2019t blame them. The markets and those population groups absolutely want their Pick n Pay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He gave the example of Sam Ntuli Mall in Katlehong, which had a Pick n Pay QualiSave store on one end, a Boxer in the middle, and a Shoprite on the other end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Pick n Pay QualiSave store is trying to sell the same products as what the Boxer is selling. It is nuts, just absolutely nuts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said Pick n Pay\u2019s Ekuseni and Qualisave plans were an example of a poor strategy which was well executed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Summers took the reins from former CEO Pieter Boone, the retailer started converting Qualisave stores back to Pick n Pay stores and rebranding others to Boxer stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summers said the current situation with two retail brands \u2013 Pick n Pay and Boxer \u2013 is far more sustainable and logical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the stores serve different needs and can thrive alongside each other in shopping malls and across South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many South Africans had to say goodbye to their local Pick n Pay store as the retailer continued to close company-owned and franchise stores across the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":773972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[5223,4067,19960,7520],"class_list":["post-811139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-checkers","tag-pick-n-pay","tag-sean-summers","tag-shoprite"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811139","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=811139"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":811143,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811139\/revisions\/811143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}