{"id":622302,"date":"2026-01-01T07:12:51","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T05:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=622302"},"modified":"2026-01-01T07:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T05:22:16","slug":"delivery-bike-battle-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business\/622302-delivery-bike-battle-in-south-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"Delivery bike battle in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa’s online on-demand grocery delivery industry continued to record strong growth in 2025, with double-digit increases in order values and volumes for many providers of this service. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The platforms’ growth has also necessitated that they contract thousands more drivers \u2014 mostly operating on motorcycles \u2014 during the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The largest on-demand grocery delivery app is Shoprite’s Sixty60, which delivers from 740 of the retailer’s stores in all nine provinces in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sixty60 has facilitated over 100 million orders since its debut, and its personal shoppers, also known as pickers, are packing around one million products per day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shoprite recently told MyBroadband that the Sixty60 ecosystem had created over 16,009 jobs since launching in November 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They include nearly 9,000 delivery drivers contracted to Shoprite’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Pingo. That is an increase of roughly 29% from the 7,000 it had a year ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These drivers primarily operate on motorcycles, but there are also many van drivers to fulfill larger item orders from Checkers Hyper stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The combination of drivers and coverage enables an average unscheduled delivery time of about 33 minutes and an average delivery distance of 3.6km.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shoprite’s biggest rival, Pick n Pay, competes with Sixty60 with its Asap! service. While it still trails Sixty60 on many fronts, it has closed the gap across various metrics in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asap’s order volumes and store footprint both grew 40% year-on-year in 2025, thanks to exceptional take-up from store franchisees. The number of stores supporting the service now exceeds 700.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, its motorcycle drivers increased by 120% to around 2,000, while van and car drivers increased by 100% to 500.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The average delivery time for unscheduled orders on the service is currently 52 minutes. While not as fast as Sixty60, it is important to note that Asap does not offer a one-hour delivery promise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The fill rate on purchased items stands at 97%, underlining our constant investment and commitment to getting our customers the product they ordered on time and in full,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asap app and Pick n Pay Online website upgrades<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A major upgrade for Pick n Pay in 2025 was the relaunch of the Asap app in April, featuring integrated Smart Shopper support following a multi-year rebuild that involved complete back-end and front-end redevelopment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The app has been well received by users, scoring an average of 4.4 out of 5 on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The retailer also added on-demand ordering on a new website in June. The new app and website increased weekly online orders by 200%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to operating its own delivery service, Pick n Pay has partnered with Mr D to supplement its on-demand capacity. Mr D contracts with more than 15,000 drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s other two major grocery chains \u2014 Spar and Woolworths \u2014 also offer on-demand delivery services. Spar2U expanded from 525 stores in September 2024 to 636 by September 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spar South Africa e-commerce head Dax Puttergill said that its on-demand orders increased 153% year-on-year in November 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The service has 754 of its own motorcycle drivers and another 1,500 drivers fulfilling Spar2u orders through its partnership with Uber Eats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That partnership covered 421 stores by early December 2025 and saw a 136% increase in order volumes year-on-year in November 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spar2U also deploys larger delivery vehicles selectively at its top-performing and seasonal locations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The number of van drivers has remained stable year-on-year, supported by improvements in our multi-
drop delivery capabilities,” Puttergill said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woolies Dash also creating jobs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths did not provide feedback on the performance of Woollies Dash, but its financial results include some details about the service’s growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last time Woolworths reported the number of stores supporting its on-demand service was in early 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that point, Woolies Dash was available from more than 120 stores. According to the retailer, these stores serve 750 areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has also not shared exactly how many drivers are operating the service, although it has said Woolies Dash supports over 2,200 jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Woolworths’ latest reported financial period \u2014 its half-year ending June 2025 \u2014 Woolies Dash turnover grew 41.6%, boosting the proportion of online sales in the retailer’s food category to 6.6%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s newest grocery and general goods retailer, Walmart, also offers an express 60-minute delivery. However, it only launched in November 2025 and is currently available from just two stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The table below provides an overview of the scale of the largest on-demand grocery delivery services in South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These have been ranked by store footprints as drivers on some of the services must also perform take-away delivery and ride-hailing services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Service<\/th>Drivers<\/th>Grocery stores<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Checkers\/Shoprite Sixty60<\/td>9,000<\/td>740<\/td><\/tr>
Pick n Pay Asap!<\/td>2,500<\/td>700+ <\/td><\/tr>
Spar2U<\/td>754<\/td>636<\/td><\/tr>
Pick n Pay on-demand on Mr D<\/td>15,000 (shared with restaurants)<\/td>300+<\/td><\/tr>
Spar on-demand on Uber Eats<\/td>1,500 <\/td>300 <\/td><\/tr>
Woolies Dash<\/td>Unknown<\/td>120+<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On-demand delivery services have increased their driver counts by thousands in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":530801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[24178,71290,64438,97492,99960,5380,99984,12679,99027,62188,24180,76720,35236,11665,76722,8507],"class_list":["post-622302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-checkers","tag-checkers-sixty60","tag-mr-d","tag-on-demand-deliveries","tag-on-demand-grocery-delivery","tag-pick-n-pay","tag-pick-n-pay-asap-2","tag-shoprite","tag-shoprite-sixty60","tag-sixty60","tag-spar","tag-spar2u","tag-uber-eats","tag-walmart","tag-woolies-dash","tag-woolworths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622302"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":623884,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622302\/revisions\/623884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}