Is it just us, or does it feel like last year’s silly season was just a couple of months back? Well, here it rolls around again, and what has certainly become an indelible part of this time of year is that day-come-month we call Black Friday. Opinions on whether it’s going to be a good or bad year vary, but the general consensus is that shoppers will no longer be on the hunt for big-ticket items like tech and durables. It’s the household essentials we’re all after. According to a Pick n Pay survey, 70% of its Smart Shoppers want discounts on groceries rather than luxury items, with shoppers planning to buy toiletries, fresh produce, clothing and shoes, and wine and liquor. At SPAR, most of its specials are focused on household staples like cake flour, maize meal, and rice, with some premium coffee and pool chlorine thrown into the mix, depending on the store’s target shopper.

So, for a slightly more analytical view and to get a feel of the feels among punters, Trade Intelligence asked South Africans aged 18+ for their thoughts on the event through a bespoke survey (using a convenience sample and online respondents only) conducted by our sister company Chirp, also part of the Smollan group. Let’s look at some of the numbers:

• • 61% of our respondents rated their anticipation and excitement of the event at the highest level, i.e. 5 out of 5 on our ‘Yipee!’ scale, while 80% were 4 or 5 out of 5 excited
  • Black Friday has officially morphed into Black November (64% have made an early purchase), and shoppers are preparing with intent: 61% have set money aside, 58% have made a shopping list, and 41% have checked normal prices to spot genuine deals
  • What’s on their radar? No surprises here… mostly groceries (50%), fashion (48%) and personal care (36%). And their mindset is clear and value-driven, looking for things they need (57%), upgrades (44%), household basics (42%), and whatever looks like a great bargain (41%)
  • When it comes to retailers, confidence is strongest in Takealot (63%), Makro (47%), Game (45%), Clicks (42%), Checkers (42%), Pick n Pay (41%), and Amazon (40%) to provide the best deals

BUT, shoppers aren’t blindly optimistic. While 73% believe Black Friday deals are worth waiting for, one-third think some discounts are misleading, and two-thirds say the idea of crowds stresses them out. Many also admit that comparing prices across retailers isn’t always easy

The big story coming out of Pick n Pay this week is that the Ackermen (and indeed women) have sold 64 million of their shares in Pick n Pay, effectively letting go of the family’s controlling stake in the business and dropping their voting interest from 49% to around 37%. That the Ackerman family is loosening its hold on the business is not news – they started the process shortly after the passing of Pick n Pay’s legendary founder and head of the family, Raymond Ackerman. But why are they selling such a big chunk of shares now? Basically, to pay off the loan that the family secured 16 months ago to support Pick n Pay’s rights offer, where they provided R1.1bn in equity for the company’s recapitalisation plan. Unsurprisingly, following Tuesday’s announcement of the share sale, Pick n Pay’s share price dropped by 7% – markets don’t particularly like sudden shake-ups, especially when it’s the founding family of a business that’s doing the shaking. But a longer-term view is that this is a necessary and positive step, marking the final phase of the company’s financial reset.

Believe it or not, a year has gone by since Checkers partnered with Discovery Vitality on the HealthyFood benefit. How has that gone for them? In one word, fan-bloomin-tastically. Since September 2024, Checkers customers have added more than 60 million HealthyFood products into their baskets, earning Vitality members over 1.6 billion Discovery Miles (worth around R160m). The results of the partnership have shown up in the financials, too, with Checkers achieving +17.7% sales growth in fruit and vegetables this year. This has been boosted by the retailer’s “focus on health-conscious, as well as ethically and environmentally responsible, higher-income shoppers” and the continued expansion of its FreshX supermarkets – the fancy supers, in other words, with all the bells and whistles like sushi bars, artisan bakeries, wine cellars, and Kauai, Starbucks and Krispy Kreme counters. Checkers’ Simple Truth brand has also done well this year, increasing sales by +24.6% – we’re pretty sure its clever campaign with Jamie Oliver may have had something to do with that. 

In other news from the greater Group, Shoprite has launched a clever digital recruitment platform, designed to connect job-seekers with available Shoprite positions closest to their homes. On average, new hires now live just 7km from their workplace, which has significant benefits for job seekers in terms of commuting time and cost, while making it easier for store managers to find the right people for the job, faster. The in-house system is the result of a multi-year project brought to life by a local SMME, OTB Group (OTB), supported by Shoprite Next Capital, the Group’s enterprise and supplier development division.

So Walmart’s first store in Clearwater Mall, Roodepoort, is opening today! We’ve sent one of our intrepid analysts to check things out and will report back on that next week. In the meantime, take a look at this video from the official opening. Next, here’s an interesting one from Pepkor, which we don’t usually cover due to its focus on clothing, GM and furniture. This story caught our attention, though, because the retail giant plans to open bank branches across the country, offering zero-fee services, potentially under the name ‘Pep Bank’. With 6,000 stores in its network, footprint would potentially be huge, even if only a fraction of those stores offer the banking services. Now, at Shoprite’s financial year-end results, Shoprite CEO Pieter Engelbrecht said, and we quote, “You are going to see us enter the banking world. We already have a banking account, which we have not started marketing.” The retailer already offers the services at its Money Market counters… now it’s just a case of transferring those services onto an app, which we’re willing to bet our gogo’s prize-winning cabbage is already in the making. We’ll watch this space. And lastly, what’s going on at Circle K, you ask? After opening its first forecourt store three years ago in Pretoria, the US c-store giant now has five stores in Gauteng and will be opening two more in the Western Cape. Circle K currently has a partnership with Puma Energy, but word on the street is that Puma owner, Trafigura, is in talks with none other than Shell to acquire its downstream ops in SA. If that happens… well, we’ll let your imagination run with that thought.