CHRIS GILMOUR: Shoprite strategy is right on the money
An upstart in the 1980s, the group has become Africa’s largest retailer and ranks in the world’s top 100
In the 1980s Shoprite was nothing more than an upstart. The three main food retailers then were Checkers, Pick n Pay and OK Bazaars. But Shoprite stuck to its knitting, concentrating on the lower end of the market. It grew organically and by clever acquisitions over the decades to become not only Africa’s largest retailer but ranked in the top 100 retailers worldwide. Those acquisitions included Checkers in 1991 and OK Bazaars, which SAB sold to Shoprite for R1 in 1997.
Pick n Pay, meanwhile, was looking for growth in Australia and would probably have succeeded there had the Australian unions, government and its biggest rival, the Coles-Myer group, not ganged up on Pick n Pay and forced them out of the country. ..
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