{"id":825488,"date":"2025-05-26T09:02:03","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T07:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=825488"},"modified":"2025-05-26T09:02:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T07:02:48","slug":"pick-n-pay-closing-stores-across-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/825488\/pick-n-pay-closing-stores-across-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Pick n Pay closing stores across South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South African retailer Pick n Pay is continuing with its recovery strategy, which has a key focus on closing or converting loss-making stores in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reporting its latest results for the year ended 2 March 2025, the group’s strategy appears to be paying off, with headline losses narrowing by over 60%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes like-for-like turnover at company-owned supermarkets increasing by 3.3% year-on-year, with positive like-for like volume growth, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Steady progress has been made over the past 18 months, with like-for-like growth improving from -0.5% in H2 FY24 to 3.1% in H1 FY25, and 3.6% in H2 FY25,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pick n Pay noted that a total of 40 loss-making Pick n Pay supermarkets were closed or converted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

25 company-owned supermarkets were closed, seven were converted to franchise stores, and eight were converted to company-owned Boxer stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boxer’s results, reported earlier this month<\/strong><\/a>, noted that a total of 15 Pick n Pay stores were converted to Boxer stores during the year, including the aforementioned eight supermarkets and seven liquor stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, Boxer said it experienced an uptick in business in these stores after being converted, showing that the strategy is working in the group’s favour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, the total number of Pick n Pay supermarkets, both company-owned and franchise stores, declined by a net of 45 stores to 570 supermarkets as of March 2025<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes 289 company-owned supermarkets and 21 hypermarkets, and 260 franchise supermarkets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another sign that the strategy is paying off for Pick n Pay is the reduction of about R1 billion in trading losses from the segment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pick n Pay segment\u2019s FY25 trading loss reduced to R549 million on a -0.7% trading margin from R1.5 billion on a -2.0% trading margin in FY24. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire FY25 trading loss reduction was driven by a significant H2 FY25 improvement, with the trading result swinging from a R864 million loss in H2 FY24 to a R170 million profit in H2 FY25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Business picking up in other segments<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While Pick n Pay’s traditional stores are still under pressure, the group is seeing significant growth in other parts of the business, including in digital and clothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pick n Pay Clothing saw a net opening of 30 stores over the period, with like-for-like sales increasing 7.7%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This brought the total to 415 stores, consisting of 396 company-owned and 19 franchise stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FY25 Clothing turnover growth from standalone stores was 11.6%. For the first 52 weeks of the year, turnover growth was 9.9% and 2.0% like-for-like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pick n Pay noted that port delays and a late start to winter drove a soft start to the year, but performance improved in the latter part of the year, with H2 like-for-like sales growth of 3.8%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Considering the high base, the group is pleased with the second half performance,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group also saw a marked improvement in its online business, especially its Asap mobile app and its partnership with Mr D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FY25 Online retail turnover, reported within PnP SA Supermarkets, grew 48.7% year-on-year (53-week basis). Turnover growth for the first 52 weeks of the period was 44.6%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The scale gains achieved have resulted in the Online business now being profitable on a fully costed basis,” Pick n Pay said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Online turnover growth was initially mostly driven by company-owned stores, Asap is now being increasingly adopted by franchisees, with triple-digit FY25 growth in franchise, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Asap technology has been completely re-platformed over the last 18 months, and a new and upgraded Asap app was launched in April 2025,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The app now integrates Asap with Smart Shopper and value-added services and AI-driven functionality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said that it will be rolling out a host of new features to fuel growth in the segment in FY2026. Pick n Pay\u2019s website will also relaunch with the Asap on-demand service rolling out from 1 June 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new app is in Beta until the end of September 2025, it said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pick n Pay has closed and converted 40 loss-making stores over the past year \u2014 but it’s seeing the opposite with other brands, like PnP Clothing and Boxer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":788723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[22646,6655,4067,22645],"class_list":["post-825488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-asap-2","tag-boxer","tag-pick-n-pay","tag-pnp-clothing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825488","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=825488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":825500,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825488\/revisions\/825500"}],"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=825488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}