IT Services4.02.2025

Pick n Pay raking it in with on-demand deliveries

Pick n Pay has released a trading update for the 45 weeks ended 5 January 2025, revealing strong growth in its online segment, driven by its on-demand delivery service and grocery offering through Mr D.

This contributed to a slight growth in like-for-like sales of 1.9% for Pick n Pay South Africa. However, it recorded a drop of 0.1% on a non-like-for-like basis.

“Online sales growth for the period was 42.5%, driven by the continued growth of Pick n Pay asap! and Pick n Pay Groceries on the Mr D app,” the retailer said.

Regarding its general operations, the Pick n Pay Group’s sales grew by 3.6% during the period. The retailer also revealed that it closed 32 supermarkets, comprising 24 company-owned and eight franchise stores.

This included the conversion of five company-owned supermarkets to franchises.

Pick n Pay’s on-demand delivery service PnP asap! has delivered consistent growth in recent years, with its latest annual results showing that the delivery service was the primary driver behind its 74.4% online sales growth between February 2023 and February 2024.

The retailer said its on-demand delivery service, including asap! and Pick n Pay Groceries through the Mr D app, grew 102.3% year over year, contributing to the overall growth in online sales.

Pick n Pay said its on-demand delivery service established itself as the second-most prominent in the country. It also revealed that the service expanded significantly over the financial year.

As of 25 February 2024, the PnP asap! service was available from 541 Pick n Pay stores nationwide.

While the retailer hadn’t provided exact figures for stores offering the asap! service in previous years’ results, the figure of 541 stores was up from “over 400” as of 26 February 2023.

PnP asap! is the second-most prominent on-demand grocery delivery service behind Checkers Sixty60.

Many South Africans may not know that Pick n Pay was the first retailer to start offering home deliveries, but it has been significantly outperformed by Checkers.

Pick n Pay founder Alec Hogg said the retailer launched home deliveries while he was still its CEO between 1999 and 2007.

Current CEO Sean Summers acknowledges that Checkers has done a better job than Pick n Pay when it comes to home deliveries. In October 2023, he said the retailer would invest in its platform and catch up to Sixty60.

“We have a great team with two really smart guys who started our with Bottles and who really understand that business,” said Summers.

Bottles, an on-demand delivery app focused on alcoholic products, launched in 2016 and partnered with Pick n Pay two years later. Pick n Pay acquired Bottles in October 2020.

It rebranded to PnP asap! in August 2021.

Summers explained that the concept of home deliveries isn’t new in South Africa, recalling how his mother would phone the grocer to order what was needed as far back as the 1950s.

The goods would be delivered a few hours later by a guy on a bicycle.

“What has really changed?” asked Summers.

“The Internet and mobile apps have replaced the phone, and a scooter has replaced the bicycle delivery man. However, in and of itself, the process of home delivery has not changed fundamentally.”

Show comments

Latest news

More news

Trending news

Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter