Bit of a shakeup over at Clickety Clicks, not that we’re reading anything into it, mind you. Keith Warburton has stepped down as Chief Operating Officer of the Group effective March this year, after two years at the tiller. According to no less a personage than David Kneale, Mr W. has achieved all sorts of great stuff in the position – and these provide a reasonable snapshot of where the beloved retail brand is currently at: Repositioning the Clicks brand for growth by improving the value offering? Check. Expanding the stores and pharmacy footprint? Check. Improving the contribution of private label? Check. Growing the company’s customer loyalty and stemming the labour turnover in pharmacies? Check and check. Mr Warburton will be replaced by the very able Vikesh Ramsunder, current MD of pharmaceutical distributor UPD, where he has achieved similar greatness. 

Comment: Nice to keep it all in the family. Good luck with your next endeavours Mr Warburton.

A week without Shoprite news would be like a week without – oh, we don’t know, something big and powerful and profitable, we suppose. This week, it’s their interims, with turnover for the six months to December 2014 up 12.5% to R57.5billion. Like store sales grew 5.1%, with internal food inflation running at 5.2% compared with the national average of 8.4%. In SA, sales grew 12%, boosted by a 13% kick in the merry month of December, while performance in Africa at 15% was more muted than we’ve come to expect. This was because of The Big Red One’s strategic withdrawal from Tanzania, as well as a store fire in Angola. At 12.2%, growth on furniture was also pleasing and this will no doubt be helped along when the Wetherly’s investment comes on-stream. 

Comment: One in the eye for all the Jeremiahs, naysayers, doubting Thomases and moaning Minnies who said Shoprite, and the rest of retail, was headed south in a clockwise direction if you know what we mean.

Oh and while we’re here, thought you’d want to know that Woolies’ first half turnover was up 55%. What? That can’t be right! It is? 55% FIFTY FIVE! PER CENT! Assisted, it must be admitted, by the acquisition of the Australianly-named retailer David Jones (or “Beeg Dive” as he’s known to hees mites), without which transaction, sales would have been up a more realistic but nevertheless respectable 12.5%. Breaking this down, SA sales were up 9.4% in clothing, 8.3% in GM and a really very pleasing 14% in food. Like store sales grew 8.2%, while retail space – including the rest of Africa – grew by 10.7%.  One area of concern is food sales in comparable stores, which grew just 8.2% compared with 11.8% last year. 

Comment: Still, excellent work in a watershed year for the Dapper One, which (boldly yet politely) announced its intention to take on the likes of H&M and Zara as a global retail power.

A quick catch up with our old friend Le Grand Bleu, or Unilever for those unschooled in our little ways. They’ve just announced their full year results for the annus horribilis that was 2014, and cutting to the chase, turnover was down 2.7% to €48.4billion, although underlying sales growth was up 2.9%. Margin was also up, to the tune of 40 bps. You at the back? Basis points, or 100ths of a percent. So about 0.4%, then. This muted performance was due to slowing demand in Europe and in some of the emerging economies where Unilever does over half its business, notably China and Brazil. The rise of the mighty dollar against emerging currencies has also not helped. But on the upside, growth in personal and homecare globally has been good, offsetting some of the weakness in food. And finally, let’s not forget that the business continues to outperform its market segment, growing share in 60% of its businesses.

Comment: Speaking of Unilever in emerging economies, be sure you don’t miss Unilever VP of Customer Development, Andrew Kennedy, speaking on the supplier panel at the Independent Trade Forum.

And the good news keeps on bucketing down like a January thunderstorm in Balgowan. November retail trade sales were up by a pleasing and unexpected 2.6% for November 2014, after October’s even more pleasing boost of 3.2%. Sundry dismal economists had predicted that the number would be closer to 1.9%. The big sellers were general dealers with a contribution of 1.5 percentage points, and retailers in hardware, paint and glass who contributed one percentage point. Emboldened by their singular lack of success in predicting anything, economists are now saying that the plummeting oil price means further largesse in months to come, with about R20billion in household spending to be freed up in the year ahead. They warn however that some of this money could go to the settlement of high levels of household debt rather than on spending per se.

Comment: As if.

Massmart have mentioned – more details to follow – that sales were up 10.4% to 78.2 billion ront in the 52 weeks to Dec. 28. Like store sales were up 7.5%, and Massbuild, at 14.6%, was a notable contributor. We can’t wait to get more of the skinny in the days to come.