Throwing down the gauntlet this week are Makro, who have bought the last mile delivery startup WumDrop. This will speed up the delivery of online orders to punters – to the tune of 3 hours for those lucky enough to reside within a 20km radius of the nearest Makro – and enable them to request pickup or drop-off of packages via their phones. From the Wumdrop point of view – for a deal like this is always a two-way street – it will enable them to lower and simplify their pricing to existing clients like Foschini’s and Standard Bank. In other Makro news, they’ve just completed the refurb on their venerable Springfield store, which they promise will be bigger and fresher than ever and which also boasts solar panel parking spaces, as part of the drive to energy efficiency, which also includes the retrofitting of older stores with energy management technologies and systems. And then there is also the opening of Makro Riversands in Midrand this week, said to be the flagship store… until they build another one, that is.

Comment: Wait ‘til you see the pics we have for you next week, after our exclusive walk around!

A couple of really nice initiatives from the Big Red One this week. The first is a corporate challenge they’ve thrown out there to get smart water meters installed in the Western Cape’s thirstiest schools. Having put in 100 to date off their own bat, Shoprite have got enough pledges to put in another 100, including 50 from Premier Foods. The meters measure and report water use by the minute by transmitting user-friendly consumption information to an internet app‚ and users are notified of any unexpected usage patterns via SMS and email. The initiative has echoes of Shoprite’s efforts during the 2016 drought, when it trucked water to needy communities in the hinterland. The spend initiative under consideration today, though, has more to do with food than water – Shoprite are offering deli meals for R5 and under for hungry shoppers across the Beloved Country, and have extended their subsidy on house-baked bread, which has been retailing at R4.99 a loaf since April last year. 

Comment: Excellent work there Shoprite – solid, practical and humane.

Despite notable absences – Woolies among them – the third Black Friday delivered on its promise of long lines and selective discounts for South Africa’s cash-strapped shoppers. Interestingly, while the number of participating retailers was up, the number of discounted items was anecdotally down this year. The biggest winners appeared to be online retailers like Takealot and Superbalist, both of whose sites crashed under the pressure of insomniac shoppers in the wee hours of Friday morning, while Pick n Pay, buoyed by the enthusiasm of shoppers for its great deals on such quotidian items as coffee, nappies, detergent and toilet paper, extended the promotion to Saturday. Shoprite’s offering was also a hit, with shoppers queuing for hours for better than usual deals on basics like cooking oil, household sugar and confectionery. 

Comment: An interesting experiment, here in SA, where the tastes of upper income consumers tends to track those of their counterparts in developed countries, while the mid to lower LSMs have in their inimitable way made this retail fest very much their own.

A right old flurry of results this week. Pioneer: revenue down -5% to R19.6bn with HEPS – the currently popular measure of profitability – down -50%. This against a backdrop of drought, a drop in exports and a strengthening rand, with relatively new CEO Tertius Carstens optimistic about a return to the black in the next FY. Rhodes: turnover up +10.8% to R4.6bn, assisted thither by recent acquisitions Packo and Ma Baker, although operating profit was down -18% to R407m on declining international performance – while sales in the rest of Africa were up +47%. Capex of R350m in the next FY will go into expanding the manufacture of pie and juices. Tiger Brands now, and if you’re looking for the upside at this point, don’t hold your breath: Turnover up just +2.3% to R31.3bn, with net profit another measure of profitability, down -5.5% to R3bn, again on a decline in exports and international sales. 

Comment: Tough times in the industry, and no mistake. But the new year may bring better performance for all of these otherwise solid businesses.

For hope, then we turn to the poultry indus… wait a moment, that can’t be right… but it is! Says here that Astral HEPS almost doubled to R735m, not bad off relatively muted growth in turnover of +3.3% to R12.3bn, and in a year which saw an outbreak of avian flu on top of the other depredations to which the industry is victim. According to CEO Chris Schutte the company needs now to grow volumes by expanding through acquisition, joint ventures or investing in increasing existing production capacity. The only problem there, of course, is a shortage of acquisition targets. Quantum Foods, a smaller player in the industry might be worth a look though: their revenue was up +4% to R4bn, and attributed the overall positive performance to increased summer rain, which led to record harvests and a significant dip in feed prices. 

Comment: The resilience of this industry in the face of adversity is remarkable. Be great to see how they perform without predatory foreigners, climate change and deadly viruses.

No use crying over spilt milk, we suppose, as Standard & Poor’s downgrade us a notch to – we can barely type the word – junk, and Moody’s put us on a downgrade review. What’s it all going to mean for the industry we call home though? Well, for starters, economists have warned that consumers are going to have to ease up on the spending in the next few months, and that in the likely event of a weaker rand we should expect higher prices on imports like, well, pretty much everything that’s not food when you come to think of it, and even a fair bit of that. Retailers are likely to increase prices – even on existing stock – in compensation for the poor old rand, and interests rates are likely to go up as prices increase, leaving less money for consumers to spend in stores. 

Comment: Barring a Christmas miracle, or an unrealistically favourable outcome at the elective conference, looks like we’re in it for the long haul.

Lidl have voted with their wallets and withdrawn their advertising from YouTube after it was revealed that paedophiles leave disgusting comments after those cute slime-making videos featuring 9-year-old girls. The only morality the internet knows is clicks and money. And Sainsbury’s seem confident of their long-term prospects after a shocker of a set of results. And that’s about it. 

If you’re up for a challenge, Unilever have begun the search for a replacement for Paul Polman, who, in his typically measured way, had said that he will retire but not until the end of 2018. St Paul, as we have been pleased to call him, takes a long-term view of business success and keeps an eye on the triple bottom line – an approach that has not always endeared him to the more rapacious among his shareholders.