A new store concept is on the horizon for Clicks, aimed at delivering advanced healthcare services and specialised support all under one roof. The store will be based on a service-led model and is designed to meet diverse medical needs by offering an expanded portfolio of pharmaceutical services and specialty products. These will include a specialised dispensary for hard-to-find or hospital-grade medications, in-house medical aid case management, blisterpacking, and home deliveries for elderly and immobile patients, dedicated clinics, including wound care, travel vaccination, and after-hour doctor services, an integrated orthopaedic and surgical department, offering both advanced equipment and expert support, as well as a curated frontshop health selection, including premium supplements and homeopathic remedies not typically available in other retail stores. A Clicks-branded mini medical centre, we dare call it. The concept aims to serve communities within a 30 to 50 km radius, prioritising personalised service, clinical quality, and customer well-being.

Comment: The acquisition of specialised 24-hour pharmacy M-Kem back in 2023 is starting to take shape. If plans announced in Clicks’ most recent annual report are still on track, we will be seeing another 9 of these formats opening across the Beloved Country over the medium term.

If you’re anywhere near Durbanville, make sure to head down to the new Woolworths Food Emporium at Village Square for a feast of the senses. According to Head of Store Design at Woolies, Mariska van Wyk, the new format introduces “a host of exciting new concepts, each thoughtfully designed to create bespoke moments throughout the store.” Like a florist department to rival your local nursery, a patisserie, an antipasti section that our nonna Pina in Italy would be proud of, and a pet ‘store-within-a-store’, with dry, tinned and refrigerated pet food as well as a host of pet toys and other furry friend necessities. Oh, and a sweets section that is as whimsical and fantastical as Woolies’ own brand suggests. But we’ll stop, and let you go see for yourself. Or have a look at the pics here.

Comment: The finishings and attention to detail are truly spectacular and world-class. In this day and age of on-demand delivery, this is how retailers are going to bring shoppers into their stores and keep them there for longer.

In our wrap-up of shorter, but no less important stories, we start with Shoprite, which has expanded its R5 basket of goods to include essential toiletries such as a 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner, and a body wash. Both items are sold as 50ml concentrates and, when diluted with 150ml water, will make enough to last for up to 20 washes, working out to just 25 cents per wash. One in five South Africans is affected by hygiene poverty, dire circumstances that these affordable products will help address. Next, last week, Pick n Pay showed appreciation for its asap! drivers by doubling their customer tips during Cape Town’s heavy rains. While recognising their hard work, the retailer also takes steps to ensure that driver safety remains a top priority during adverse weather through daily safety briefings and adjusting delivery operations. Still with Pick n Pay, its logo made its debut on the backs of our Springboks’ jerseys this last weekend. And it didn’t go unnoticed by our aunt B at the family braai. “Look at that!” she said, as we smiled to ourselves on behalf of Pick n Pay’s marketing team. And finally, Mr D has launched an on-demand offering called ‘Pet Express’, which will deliver all your pet essentials to your door within 60 minutes. This just two weeks after Checkers announced that PetShop Science would be partnering with Sixty60 to do the same. As is the case with its competitor, Pet Express will be offering punters a range of pet basics, as well as more specialised premium and vet-approved ranges.

A host of international retailer news has come past our desks this week, and though we would love to cover it all, our word count is a strict one, so we’ll pick out just a few items here. First – and we reckon this one will cause a bit of a stir – retailers in the UK will soon be required to publish data on the amount of unhealthy food they sell as the government and NHS seek to crack down on obesity. Failing to reach specific targets will also mean penalties. As the country with the third-highest obesity rate in Europe, retailers and manufacturers are being asked to help “make the healthy choice the easy choice” for consumers. And according to Wes Streeting, the UK’s Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if obese people cut their calorie intake “by about 216 calories a day – the equivalent of a bottle of fizzy Coke – we’d halve obesity.” Coca-Cola can’t be too happy with that comment. Moving swiftly along, Amazon is under investigation in the UK for potentially making late payments to food suppliers. The Grocery Code Adjudicator is leading the probe, focusing on whether Amazon, as a designated grocery retailer, has violated rules designed to ensure fair treatment of suppliers. If found in breach, Amazon could face a fine of up to 1% of its UK annual revenue. Over in the US, Circle K (owned by Canadian company Alimentation Couche-Tard) is selling 35 forecourt stores to its competitor Majors Management to avoid competition issues following the former’s acquisition of GetGo c-stores. This isn’t the first time the pair have struck a deal to avoid the competition police, with Majors Management selling 112 stores to Alimentation Couche-Tard back in 2023 when it sought to buy c-store operator MAPCO. And still with forecourts, big-box US retailer Costco will be opening its first standalone fuel forecourt in California. Costco has been operating petrol stations alongside its stores for some 30 years now, with a global footprint of over 700 stations. At this stage, it is unclear if it will be opening standalone fuel stations in more locations.

Not too much going on in the supplier space locally, so we turn our eyes abroad. Last year in August, we brought you news of the potential acquisition of Kellanova (owner of Pringles, Pop-Tarts, Rice Krispies Treats and Kellogg’s international cereals) by food-giant Mars, subject, of course, to competition authorities’ approval. Antitrust regulators in the US have given it the go-ahead; however, their peers in Europe have raised concerns that the deal may increase prices and have opsened an investigation of their own. When looking at the business’ 2024 revenues, Mars is a significantly larger company than Kellanova ($55bn versus just under $13bn respectively), and if the deal goes through, the combined businesses will account for 12% of the US snacking and confectionery industry, according to market share figures by NielsenIQ. The European Commission expects to reach a decision by end October, and although obviously disappointed by the hold-up, Mars remains confident that it will be able to close the deal towards the end of the year. Back home, our Competition Commission has also approved the integration of Kellanova’s operations into Mars, finding that the transaction was unlikely to cause competition concerns.

Last week, BER/FNB released their Consumer Confidence* Index for Q2/2025, with the numbers showing a rebound in Q2 to -10 (after -20 in Q1), which, although an improvement, does mean that the index is still in the red, where it has now been for six years. Much of the ‘rebound’ had more to do with the timing of Q1’s survey, conducted just after the triple whammy of the budget speech postponement, news breaking of a proposed +2.0pp VAT increase (which was eventually scrapped) and a couple of days of hectic load shedding that left just as quickly as they arrived. In addition, the world economy was rocked by US President Trump’s tariff policy announcement. The Q2 survey, conducted in early June, left the index on par with last year’s Q2 result and continues to reflect the relatively pessimistic outlook for the economy and households for the next 12 months: the ‘economic outlook’ subindex was -18 and ‘household financial outlook’ sat at 9 – it is typical for respondents to be more pessimistic about the economic outlook than their household financial outlook. Meanwhile, the subindex for the ‘suitability of the present time to buy durable goods’ is back to -21 (still firmly negative, but better than Q1’s -28). This mild recovery reflects the interest rate cuts over the last few months and moderate inflation, but continues to speak to persistent household pressure and cautious sentiment around discretionary spending.

*The Consumer Confidence Index is measured through a survey of consumers on a scale from +100 to -100, with +100 = extremely confident, 0 = neutral, -100 = extremely unconfident across three sub-indices: economic outlook, household financial outlook and suitability of the present time to buy durable goods.

Comment: If you and your businesses want to know more about how this index looks by household-income band, or you’d like analyses on all the key economic indicators, get your hands on our latest update of the Trade Intelligence South African Economic Report, out tomorrow. Or you can have a look at our free 1-page summary of the numbers here.