Extending the brand this week is Pick n Pay, with the launch of its online Pick n Pay Home store, a side-hustle offering the value-conscious punter over 5,000 products from homeware to appliances, with the added bonus that Smart Shopper members get 10% of their purchase back to spend in Pick n Pay stores – ensuring that the online offering drives footfall to other categories rather than cannibalising in-store sales. One of the categories is baby, the subject of something of an arms race right now, as we’ve observed before. In other news from The Big Blue, 39 of its stores are now accepting payment in Bitcoin, with every till point shortly to follow, provided you have the right software on your phone, Louis Vuitton loafers and a Versace tracksuit. Payments, once notoriously slow, take a mere 30 seconds using the Bitcoin Lightning system. Pick n Pay has been personally invested in the currency since 2017, when it trialled crypto payments at its head office canteen.

Comment: It may be a little tech-bro, but crypto is definitely a thing now, and should be treated accordingly.

Big up to Clicks, winner this year of the Customer Experience category in the pharmacies industry in the 2022/23 Ask Afrika Orange Index Awards. The index is the most referenced customer experience benchmark in South Africa, and the definitive measurement for identifying the companies that offer the best customer experience. “Customers are looking for products that meet their needs, with the correct value proposition, that are reliable and that are honest in their dealings with the consumer,” says Ask Afrika MD Sarina de Beer. “Winning brands build seamless customer channels and have a good understanding of the needs of their customers.” With 670 dispensaries operating, Clicks is now South Africa’s biggest pharmacy brand, providing professional advice, low dispensing fees, and a wide range of generics and OTC medicines. In other pharmacy news, Shoprite has just opened third standalone Medirite Plus pharmacy in the Western Cape, at Somerset Square in Somerset West.

Comment: Even so, it seems unlikely at this point that anyone – even Shoprite – will ever knock Clicks off the pedestal it has worked so hard to win.

First up, farewell to the Johannesburg Securities Exchange for Massmart, on November 22, following the R6.4bn offer from parent Walmart to take the business private. Massmart has been publicly traded for over 20 years, the last 11 of those with Walmart as its major shareholder. In that time, sadly, the share price has almost halved. Analysts are of broad agreement that Massmart will do better away from public scrutiny and the demands of its shorter-term shareholders. Next up: Dis-Chem. Sales dropped during the shopper ‘boycott’ from 17-24 October after the publication of CEO Ivan Salzman’s hastily written memo about not employing any more white people in order to ensure that the business was not fined 10% of its turnover, in which case pretty much lights out. “We have seen our growth trend reverse from 17 October to 24 October when looking at daily sales numbers following the leaking of the memo,” says CFO Rui Morais, gnashing his teeth almost audibly. “That trend has now reversed back to normal following the pay cycle on 25 October.”

Comment: Sad re. Massmart, no? A great business which has for a number of years fallen on the wrong side of fickle circumstance.

In Australia, supermarkets have warned punters that they might shortly have to impose purchase limits on certain items due to shortages of grocery staples after a growing season impacted by extreme weather, and supply chain issues. Some of the items are corn, cauliflower, broccoli, beans, peas, carrots, and potatoes – the last of which affects the availability of such products as frozen chips. Months of flooding on the eastern seaboard, and a major monsoon in Thailand were among the weather events in question. In the US, where consumers seem to believe they are the only country affected by high inflation amid the recovery of a pandemic, disrupted supply chains, natural disasters and a major international crisis, research outfit Vericast has established that 57% of them plan to cut back on spending for Thanksgiving dinner, and 74% reported that they would buy Thanksgiving ingredients from a new brand if offered a deal. “Survey results continue to point to another rocky holiday season,” says Vericasts’s director of category strategy for national sales, the cheerfully named Chip West.

Comment: Signs and portents, everywhere you look. We will need a paradigm shift in how things are bought and sold if we are to successfully navigate the age of greater scarcity and disruption we are entering.