A couple of weeks back, Clicks announced somewhat tersely that it would be ending its loyalty partnership with Shell, no real reasons given. Last week, they announced somewhat more fulsomely, that they had established a new partnership, with Engen, by which for every litre of petrol they purchase, members of Clicks’ ClubCard loyalty programme will receive one ClubCard point, or two during the introductory period in December and January. With SA’s largest network of service stations, Engen offers punters a greater number of locations to earn these points, a fact likely to mollify members whose noses were seriously out of joint when the Shell scheme was dropped. In other Clicks news, their licensed cosmetic brand Oh So Heavenly has been bought by Indian outfit Wipro Enterprises as part of the acquisition of parent company Canway, for an unspecified amount.

Comment: Exciting times for one of SA’s most consistently successful retail brands.

Bowing to the inevitable replacement of all other communications systems in the world by WhatsApp, Makro have announced that punters will now be able to experience instant customer care and service by connecting with them directly on the ubiquitous application. Services on offer include tracking orders, viewing current catalogues, accessing a digital store card, locating nearby stores, and having frequently asked questions (FAQs) instantly answered in the chat function. “The addition and implementation of exciting functions in WhatsApp aligns with Makro’s mission to help our customers fulfil their aspirations of living better lives, running better businesses, and saving them time and money,” said Makro’s head of digital marketing Kerry Ho.

Comment: Meet your customer where they are, that’s how it’s done. And (probably) save a bob or two while you’re about it.

Shoprite has over 30 supermarkets in Angola, and during the oil boom was doing pretty well there for a spell. However, Angola has now fallen prey to hyperinflation, which has played merry heck with the purchasing power of punters, and the country has since become a broken arrow in the Shoprite quiver. Are they thinking of bailing? It would be a big deal if they were. While they’ve been pretty ruthless cutting ties with underperforming geographies in the past (adios, Egypt, au revoir Ile Maurice) they’ve never got out of one in which they’ve been so invested. And the rest of Africa is looking pretty good, with significant growth in places like Kenya, where they’ve opened four stores in a year, and Ghana. In the absence of a firm decision, then, they’re hunkering down, continuing to focus on controlling costs according to pragmatic CEO Pieter Engelbrecht.

Comment: These are the hard yards for retail in Africa. But retailers (and indeed shareholders) would be wise to remain invested on the continent, the difficulties of some countries notwithstanding.

Technically an international retailer, Choppies has sold its South African business to King Investment’s for a princely One Ront, on the understanding that King will immediately loan it R100m to get itself back in business on these shores. In the mysterious east, meanwhile, Tesco is reportedly considering the sale of its 2,000 stores in Thailand and Malaysia to an unnamed buyer. Tesco doesn’t need the sale, and the business in those parts seems healthy – they are in fact looking at opening another 750 convenience stores in Thailand – so any deal, be it to a family-owned conglomerate or private equity player, as has been speculated, would likely be a hefty one. In India, the nation’s small shopkeepers (of which there are, get this, 70 million, controlling around 90% of the trade) are rising up against the tyranny of Amazon and Flipkart, demanding that the government shut down those businesses websites until they desist from what the shopkeepers union sees as predatory pricing practices.

Comment: The frontlines of retail eh. Exciting times.

In an outcome likely to find a sympathetic audience in the Beloved Country right now, Astral Foods has obtained an interdict on Eskom to prevent the utility cutting power to its Meadow Feeds facility, arguing that such a move would have a devastating effect on Astral itself, and on other businesses in the Rand West municipality, which is being penalised by Eskom for non-payment of its electricity bill. Local authorities owe Eskom R26.4bn, a smallish yet significant portion of its R450bn debt. This is not the first time that Astral has been affected by the issues (ahem) related to the governance of local authorities, to put it politely: in FY2019, the business incurred over R120m in costs from water supply constraints from the deterioration of infrastructure in Lekwa Municipality, which supplies its Standerton processing plant.

Comment: The private sector can continue to create jobs and build communities if provided, by government, with the basic services for which it has paid. But not otherwise, surely?

In the Netherlands, Unilever has unveiled a new €85m food innovation centre, built in response, they say, to “major global food system challenges”. The facility, Hive, is located on the campus of Wageningen University amidst academic research facilities, start-ups and external partners. The area is known for breakthroughs in agri-food tech from the start-ups, science institutes, NGOs and companies that call the region, known as Food Valley, home. Being the Netherlands, it is not, of course a real valley. “We need a fundamental transformation of the food system if we are to feed more than 9 billion people sustainably and nutritiously,” explains Unilever CEO Alan Jope, who has obviously taken up the sustainability baton handed to him by Paul Polman. In Ghana – in completely unrelated Unilever news – MD Gladys Amoah has resigned from her position without giving reasons, along with a non-exec on the board, Yaw Nsarkoh. Ms Amoah, you may recall, did a spell as Customer Marketing Director for Hygiene in South Africa.

Comment: Unilever’s leadership in sustainable business has been a powerful force, highlighting the role that companies like this will have to play in the challenging decades to come.

Bad news on the economic front this week as GDP growth shrank -0.6% for the third quarter, confounding economists who had predicted it would grow +0.8% after growing +3.2% in the second quarter. This has led various bodies to revise their outlook for the year, with Reuters pointing to 0.6%, assuming fourth quarter growth, and the Reserve Bank predicting 0.5%. Only four out of ten sectors grew for the quarter, including finance and trade. There were a few bits of good news though: gross fixed investments grew +4.5% on the back of strong imports of machinery and computer equipment. This often underpins future growth in outputs; right now it probably means that businesses are investing in efficiencies rather than growth. And business confidence is up MoM, although down YoY, and Eskom seems to be doing its level best to out a dent in it.

Comment: Hard times, but this being South Africa, not uniformly so.