SA’s largest retailer Shoprite had to house employees in hotels and its distribution centres during the Cape Town taxi riots to keep stores open and cashiers safe.
Shoprite held its AGM on Monday and answered a question from shareholder activist group Just Share about staffing pay during the violent taxi protests in which five people died and employees could not get to work.
CEO Pieter Engelbrecht said buses with armed guards were provided to transport employees safely to stores, with only two shops closed during the eight-day strike in which taxis did not operate. Staff staying away from home were provided with toiletries and uniforms.
This information reveals the difficulty of doing business in SA, which has faced constant challenges including Covid-19 lockdowns, the 2021 KwaZulu-Natal riots, flooding in KwaZulu-Natal in 2022 and the Cape Town taxi strike.
On Friday, TFG CEO Anthony Thunström said retailers had faced many “once in a century” challenges, and no sooner had Covid-19 ended, then they faced the worst looting in their history in the KwaZulu-Natal riots and then unprecedented levels of load-shedding.
Speaking at the AGM, Shoprite chairperson Wendy Lucas-Bull praised the group for reporting growth in face of sustained load-shedding, high interest rates, low consumer confidence and an elevated cost of doing business.
This is as the group posted double-digit growth in the first quarter to end-September.
The core group supermarkets in SA, which include Checkers, liquor stores, its pet stores and uSave brands, reported sales rose 13.3%, above price growth of 8.3%, showing it is growing volumes sold — and is one of the few retailers in SA to do so.
The group as a whole, including its furniture, Computicket and other businesses, reported growth of 13.2%
It continues to do well in Africa having exited markets including Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Madagascar. Salesincreased just over 9.7% when converted into rand. It remains in nine African countries including Angola and Zambia.
The cost of diesel used during load-shedding in the three months to end-September reached R281m. It said in its past financial year it experienced 322 days of load-shedding.
The group opened 43 stores and closed one in the quarter. It opened two Checkers, six Shoprite, five Usave, 18 LiquorShop, eight Petshop Science stores, two clothing stores and two Outdoor camping stores.
The group plans to open 195 stores in its 2024 financial year in total.
Shoprite said it has had uninterrupted market share gains in its core SA supermarket business for 55 months.
Lucas-Bull said it was able to grow market share thanks to “dedicated leadership, [and an] unwavering daily execution of a focused brand segmentation strategy”, with Shoprite focused on the lower income-consumer and Checkers the middle- to upper-income customers. What also helped it, she said, was its rewards programme that offers instant discounts and its on- demand delivery service Checkers Sixty 60.
She made reference to its “precision retailing,” where it uses data on shoppers gleaned from rewards cards to know exactly what to sell and how to price goods at different times in the month with individualised discounts aimed at customers.
Shoprite’s share price fell 1.31% on Monday to R248. It is, however, still up almost 10% so far this year.
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