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The battle for supermarket supremacy is cut-throat.

Drop your guard for a second and competitors are waiting to pounce, which Woolworths has found out the hard way over the past few years.

First, Checkers (owned by Shoprite) beat them to the punch with the success of the Sixty60 app, hot out the gate as the pandemic heralded in the era of ordering groceries online for delivery.

You may think that you’re looking at different LSM (Living Standards Measure, used in South Africa to classify standard of living and disposable income) markets with Checkers and Woolies, but that gap has been closed in a big way.

The Daily Maverick reports that while Woolies “has been distracted by the mess in Australia and the difficulties in the fashion, beauty and home (FBH) segment in South Africa, Shoprite has pounced on the high-LSM market and is eating Woolworths’ lunch”.

In addition, Shoprite’s lower LSM offerings have also grown:

In the six months to 2 January 2022, Shoprite and Usave grew 7.3%. That’s a highly respectable result, though it looks timid next to an almighty performance of 11.4% growth in Checkers and Checkers Hyper. This was achieved despite the unrest and looting, with two Hypers still closed.

In a trading update covering an almost identical period, Woolworths Food could only increase turnover by 3.8%. It doesn’t take a mathematician to see that Woolworths Food is shedding market share to Checkers.

It wasn’t that long ago that Pick n Pay was mopping the floor with Shoprite.

There was one bit of bad news for Shoprite, with its furniture segment showing a 3,2% decrease in sales during the quarter. Their loss was Lewis’ gain as the outlet posted a 3,6% sales growth over the same period.

The same article also takes a look at how the likes of Builders Warehouse, the Foschini Group, Mr Price, and Pepkor performed during the quarter.

Read the full article here for more on that.

[source:dailymaverick]