The venerable Clicks ClubCard programme is getting something less charitable journals have been calling a “facelift”. We would go so far as to call it a renaissance, without the Medicis and the flowing sleeves. What they’ve done, see, is to go paperless, loading new rewards points – with one point equalling ten cents on every rand spent – onto the member’s card itself, rather than sending them vouchers in the mail. Sadly, this means that the ClubCard magazine will only be available online, six times a year, for regular members, although Gold members will be able to pick up theirs in store. On the upside, Clicks will be crediting each and every ClubCard with the rewards which members were too slack or too busy to claim. The idea, for Clicks, is to simplify the use of the ClubCard for punters, while drawing their attention to the value of the points, which are reputedly worth double the average retailer offering. 

Comment: And of course to steal perhaps just a little thunder from Pick n Pay’s successful Smart Shopper programme.

Massmart’s click and collect system of internet shopping will soon kick into operation. The idea, you may recall, was that you would order your goodies online – a shrink of Sunlight, say, and an inexpensive colour laser jet printer – and that you would then be able to pick them up at a Sasol garage of your choice, all the while being apprised via SMS of their progress through the supply chain. When the order is ready for collection, a final SMS will inform you – in a thrillingly Mission Impossible fashion – of the secret code you will require to access your purchase, should you choose to accept it. Unfortunately, Massmart’s partner in the endeavour, UTI, chose to have the lockers locally manufactured, and this involved a bit of to-toing and froing with “overseas experts” to ensure compliance with the highest international standards. The lockers will shortly go into production, and phase 1 should launch before June. 

Comment: Uh, or you could just drop it off for us, there’s a good chap…

According to Choppies’ chair (and, interestingly, former President of Botswana Festus Mogae), the plucky retailer has plans to expand its operation in Botswana, in Zimbabwe, and right here in the Republic too – although its rate of expansion at home is likely to be slower. And plans to expand into some unnamed “new markets” this year are also on track. This as they announced a 20% increase in revenue for the six months to December, with a 21% growth in gross profit. They believe their South African infrastructure – which as you know includes a newly-minted fruit and veg DC in Rustenburg, could accommodate as many as 100 stores, more than a touch up from the current 24. They’re also considering a secondary listing on the JSE.

Comment: There’s something more than a little unsettling about being considered a promising geography for an African retailer intent on expansion.

P&G vs Unilever has been a kind of massive, slow-motion grand prix for how many decades now? And right now, P&G appear to be carrying the wrong tyres. They’re in the process of selling off 100 brands globally, including Duracell, in order to achieve a return to profitability. Unilever, in the meantime, saw global sales grow 2.9% in 2014. As has been ever thus in the past few years, this was due in small part to emerging markets, which grew 5.7% while sales in developed countries declined by 1%. Emerging markets now account for 60% of revenue, with 70% targeted for 2020. Unilever spent $7.6million on marketing last year, a biggish chunk of it on getting the Unilever brand if not front and centre, then in a position of greater prominence. This, Unilever believes, is an imprimatur of social and environmental responsibility which consumers will learn to trust.

Comment: As early adopters of the sustainability message, Unilever will have to work (and spend) harder and harder to defend this positioning as virtually every other business in the world comes on board.

Joining the scramble for Africa this week is Clover, which has spent four years beefing up its distribution and logistics networks here at home and is now eyeing Mozambique, Zambia, Nigeria, Angola and east Africa for expansion opportunities. And rather than going all-in and getting its fingers burnt as other, larger businesses have done, Clover’s strategy will be to take minority stakes in smaller businesses, benefiting from local knowledge. Such businesses, some of which have already been identified, are typically beverage or dairy outfits, and are “people with the same mind-set as us”, Clover’s words, not ours. Phase 2 would be establishing local production and distribution facilities. And all of this will be funded by a mix of cash and credit, to each of which Clover currently has impressive access. 

Comment: It’s going to be a wild, if meticulously-planned ride. Anyone in?

Lest you are in a state of any doubt about the dire shape of SA’s economy, follow the money: private companies divested from  rather than invested in almost every sector last year, including manufacturing (-0.5%), transport and communication (-1.7%) and power and water (-6.1%). The only winners were mining (at a very modest +1.9%) and community services (10.9%, assisted almost exclusively by government rather than private sector spending). Businesses which did invest, were more likely to invest their money in operations elsewhere in Africa, something we have noted in these very pages. The threat here is that the economy could stagnate through lack of investment for the next three to five years. But all is not lost, and here we turn to our favourite economist, insofar as we have one, Cees Bruggemans of FNB: “It’s all so unnecessary,” he protests. “We have the assets, the management, the capital and the capacity for companies to switch back on when we’re ready to run again... It’s not that the engine’s seized, it’s just that the key hasn’t turned: we need the confidence to take risk which will generate demand and so turn the engine on again.” 

Comment: Word. We can do this, people.

According to our wonkish friends at The Bureau of Economic Research, retail in South Africa appears to be in a state of recovery from the headwinds last year (generated substantially by industrial action), with retail sales volumes climbing during the first quarter of 2015. Business confidence among retailers of durable goods is up from 61 in the fourth quarter of last year to 79 in the first quarter of this year, it highest level since those summery, pre-crash days of 2007.

Anheuser-Busch InBev SA, SABMiller PLC, Heineken NV and Carlsberg A/S are among a gang of brewers ready and eager to start slapping calorie counts on their beers in Europe, and with 71% of American consumers citing “healthfulness” as a consideration in product choice, the US might follow soon. Not all booze companies think it’s a great idea, Pernod Ricard for one. But then they’re French, and look fabulous however many calories they consume.