Pick n Pay is joining Woolies in allowing its shoppers to buy groceries on tick. What? No, not tik. Credit. Using their Smart Shopper cards, with up to 55 days’ interest-free credit, budget payment options for big-ticket items and monthly store account fees of only R10 for active users. Smart Shopper now has an active membership of 7million South Africans, at least some of whom will need a helping hand through the last worrying days of each month, so this launch is timely. Pick n Pay anticipates – perhaps correctly – that the facility will drive both footfall and basket sizes. The move is not universally supported, with debt counsellors suggesting that it could backfire, as many desperate shoppers default on their accounts.

Comment: It will be interesting to see whether this move sparks an arms race. While Shoprite could at a push have decided not to dip its toe into the waters of full-blown loyalty marketing, offering credit to an increasingly cash-strapped shopper base is another story altogether.

‘Seize the Moment’ was the theme of this year’s SPAR Convention, which we at Trade Intelligence had the privilege of attending last week. As always, SPAR’s culture is palpable, and the powerful impact that the ethos of family values has on the organisation, as it sits real at its heart, is directly linked to the success of this business model. There are two stories here though… this one is about culture at a macro level, and the impact of corporates getting it right. The other, a more operationally relevant SPAR convention report-back for Ti clients who fall within the SPAR supplier community. The latter will be distributed directly to Ti supplier clients. Read more here.

Comment: Our article says it all. Go on…have a read.

Wumdrop is a platform that was originally built as a sort of Uber for parcels, delivered using a ride-share approach. If you left your wallet at home, for example, a WD driver would extract it from the couch cushions and bring it over to office so you could complete your Takealot transaction during working hours. Now it has pivoted, as marketing types like to say, to business applications, with, for example, ecommerce deliveries, giving customers full control over the deliveries, without having to build or manage their own fleet. There’s no central distribution hub, so it’s faster and cheaper to operate, it has all sorts of bells and whistles like an app and location confirmation, and has picked up customers like TFG, Xando and McDonalds. And now Makro, which is looking to use their service for ecommerce, and also to better manage its own fleet, and Game, for whom WumDrop are delivering a solution to help them manage their “bakkie brigade” more effectively. 

Comment: The big logistics businesses are hearing a voice on the cold wind this morning. And the voice is whispering “game changer.”

Comment: That‘s a wrap then. A nice Thai chicken one, delivered by Marks and Spencer.

To be honest, it’s something of a relief to be writing a Unilever story about how they intend to make cold hard cash out of a business proposition rather than how they want to make the waters clean again and peace to reign, although that’s also nice. Anyway, here’s the deal, and it’s an interesting One. Remgro South Africa (don’t mention the tobacco!) is offloading its 25.75% stake in Unilever South Africa to Unilever, plus cash to the value of R4.9bn, for the entirety of Unilever’s spreads business, a sector that they’ve been struggling with and have wanted to exit for some time. The total deal is worth a handsome R11.9bn. Remgro, you will recall, own a substantial stake in RCL FOODS, which has a well-advertised strategy of diversifying out of poultry, so the move might not be entirely tangential to that, although we shall have to see. The spread business holds such august brands as Flora, Rama, Stork and Rondo. 

Comment: Shrewd move by all parties, sounds like to us. Although it will be interesting to see how Remgro engineers the turnaround of the spreads business.

Pity the perfect apple. Magnificently heart shaped, rubicund and iridescent, its waxy skin free of any blemish, its single leaf a perky plea to be picked for pride of place on the pedagogue’s podium, it has become the Kardashian of fruit, a decadent symbol of our shallow, beauty-obsessed times, and of waste in the value chain. Not any more, Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing hasten to tell us. Yes, those perfect apples are still selected for export. But the humbler exemplars of the genus find their way to the domestic racks, where with a spritz of water and the right lighting they can be made to seem almost as inviting. Asymmetrical? Perhaps the municipal market’s right for you, the exciting hustle and bustle of the pavement trade. Underdeveloped, hopelessly blemished? We’ll turn you into juice, a cool refreshing drink for a deserving child on a hot summer’s day, or the bearded barman’s secret ingredient in his signature cocktail. None of the above? You will have a brief but noble career in a biogas digester, to be turned into electricity to power a nation. And if you’re a windfall? Mulch, to feed a new generation of perfect and imperfect fruit. 

Comment: So there you have it. Nice work, Tru-Cape. And good luck, young apple.

So last week, the Reserve Bank decided not to reduce the interest rate. This has confused pundits: a firmer rand such as we’ve seen in recent days generally leads to lower inflation and hence – inevitably in recent years – to a rate cut. But, no deal, suggesting that the Bank lacks confidence in the link between the rand and inflation right now. And with a 6.9% drop in private sector fixed investment, a .25% cut in the lending rate is unlikely to increase anyone’s desire to open their wallets. It’s a bad time for confidence generally: during the second quarter of the year, business confidence among SMMEs declined by 7-8 percentage points compared with the same period this year. And OK, we’re out of recession, but our second quarter growth of 2.5% was driven largely by agriculture, forestry and fishing, which in the current climate, if you’ll pardon the wordplay, are a shaky platform on which to build our hopes. And so too is the current management structure, which with its looming political and potential legal threats is also doing investor confidence no favours. 

Comment: Borrowed time.

Not the jewel in the Clicks crown, certainly, but a little sparkling gem, The Body Shop has always performed well for the Group, and lent a touch of je ne sais quoi to a solid operation. Now, it seems, The Body Shop might be on the way out, as internationally the brand has been acquired from L’Oréal by Natura Cosmeticos. Clicks has an agreement with The Body Shop until 2020 – one wonders how the deal will affect this. 

Last week Woolies announced it new executive structure for its perhaps significantly-named Australasian operation. WHL Australasia will be headed up by regional CEO John Dixon, while David Thomas, current COO has been appointed as CEO of David Jones. Not a shakeup, perhaps, but something of a bedding down at a time when the recent disappointing results from down under must have caused even the steadiest hands over at Woolies to tighten their grip imperceptibly on the Royal Dalton teacup.

Seven Shoprite cashiers appeared in court last week on charges of theft for accepting tips. According to Shoprite, tipping goes against a company policy which does not allow staff to have personal cash on them during working hours. “Shoprite is obliged to take action in order to protect its assets and therefore involved the police to investigate suspicions of theft at its Pelican Park branch,” said the business in a statement, sticking very strictly to the letter of the law.

Kenya has opened its first petrol station pharmacy, in partnership with Payless Pharmacy, at its Hurlingham forecourt in Nairobi, Kenya. The business is investigating other geographies where such an offering might be viable. Our instinct is that South Africa might not be one of these: our tastes for a roadside stop are broader. Engen, you will be surprised to know, operates in 17 countries now, on the continent and the islands of the Indian Ocean.