Pick n Pay: Now for the hard yards
The retailer is surviving, but it’s still far from thriving
South African roads these days are filled with delivery scooters. Technology has created thousands of jobs, not just for drivers, but also for in-store pickers and packers. As Bob Dylan aptly sang decades ago: “The times they are a-changin’.” Disruption presents an opportunity to shake up an industry. The winners win and the losers, well ... they lose. Technology drives such rapid change that the losers often lose quickly.
Pick n Pay had been quietly breaking down in the background for a long time, making it a sitting duck for disruption. With the group’s segmental reporting bundling all the South African grocery stores together (that is, Pick n Pay and Boxer), the rapid growth of Boxer was masking Pick n Pay’s decline. It wasn’t obvious unless investors visited the stores and spoke to shoppers. But when the swarm of turquoise Sixty60 scooters started buzzing around town and Checkers began posting mega-growth figures while building exciting FreshX stores in lucrative loc...
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