Checkers reveals secret to Sixty60 success

Neil Schreuder, Shoprite’s chief of strategy and innovation, said their extensive distribution and shop network and last-mile efficiency are its biggest weapons in the eCommerce war.

Checkers Sixty60 was launched in 2019 and quickly became the dominant grocery delivery service in South Africa.

It received a significant boost during the pandemic when lockdowns and concerns over COVID-19 encouraged people to use delivery services.

Schreuder said that in 2020, their volumes skyrocketed as Checkers rapidly expanded Sixty60 throughout the country to cater to the increased demand.

In Shoprite’s latest annual report, the company’s CEO, Pieter Engelbrecht, revealed that Checkers Sixty60 was available in 539 stores.

It increased its footprint by 73 stores year-on-year, providing one-hour delivery access to more than 80% of the addressable online market in South Africa.

Checkers Sixty60 has also started establishing ‘dark stores’ to enhance its capacity to serve consumers with speed.

The Checkers Sixty60 app has achieved 5.2 million downloads since launch and 1.4 million downloads over the last year.

With a new fleet of Hyper delivery vans, Checkers Sixty60’s product offering now includes larger items in addition to groceries.

These items include camping and outdoor gear to small appliances, baby products, toys, kitchen and home electronics, gardening and pool equipment.

Last month, Checkers rolled out the new Sixty60 app to millions of shoppers nationwide following months of testing.

The app has a refined layout and user interface, as well as multi-factor authentication to enhance security.

In addition to the wide range of groceries and essentials, the new app offers shoppers in eligible areas precision delivery of products from selected Checkers Hyper stores.

Checkers Sixty60 has introduced 2,500 additional premium products for delivery in Cape Town.

This includes 100 new brands, such as Apple, Dyson, Thule, Smeg, Samsung, and Harmon Kardon, with more being added over the coming months. 

Checkers Sixty60’s secret weapon

Speaking to Classic Business, Schreuder said Sixty60’s biggest weapons are its extensive distribution and shop network and last-mile efficiency.

“Ten years ago, brick-and-mortar retailers thought their large real estate and footprint would be their Achilles heel,” he said.

With a much smaller footprint and centralised distribution centres, online players seemed to have an advantage.

However, this narrative changed. “Checkers has weaponised its store footprint and proximity to customers,” he said.

He added that 80% of South Africans live within five kilometres of one of their supermarkets, which is a great asset.

Shoprite Checkers also has an exceptional supply chain which gets millions of products to 3,000 stores throughout the country daily.

With this asset, the only thing that Sixty60 must do is cover the last five-kilometre delivery to the customer’s door.

“We do the last five kilometres really efficiently. We can do it faster and more affordably than normal online retailers,” he said.

He said competing eCommerce players, like Temu and Shein, cannot match the service level of Sixty60.

This is why an extensive brick-and-mortar store footprint, with in-store picking, is now seen as a weapon.

He said their average delivery time has dropped to 33 minutes, and customers cannot return to slower deliveries.

This article was first published by Daily Investor and is reproduced with permission.