Is Checkers 'eating' Spar?

Sixty60: Store's service is predicated on convenience, as is rival's entire offering

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The Checkers Sixty60 on-demand delivery machine roars on, with sales through this platform growing by 58% in its last financial year.

Between 2021 and last year, the number of deliveries has quintupled (up 530%).

It continues to roll out the Sixty60 service which, as of September, was available at 539 locations, an increase of 73 from the previous year (15%).

At the beginning of September, it had 283 stores, 38 hyper stores and 276 LiquorShops in the country. Impressively, Sixty60 is now at 90% of its store base.

There is absolutely no doubt that Sixty60 has been a key driver in the growth of the Checkers business, which continues to be the star in the Shoprite Group, alongside Usave (the core Shoprite business is battling, relatively speaking).

Checkers reported sales growth of 12% in its last financial year. Between July 2023 and June-last year, very roughly aligned to its fiscal, Checkers took R4 billion in market share from its competitors.

The fight is on

For all the talk of the titanic battle between Checkers and Woolworths for affluent customers - and make no mistake, they are battling aggressively for every rand - the truth is that Checkers has been taking market share from all competitors.

In recent years, as Pick n Pay stumbled, it has seized on that opportunity.