Retail group Checkers says another petrol price hike this week will mean it is cheaper to have groceries delivered than paying for travel costs to one of its stores.
Checkers has calculated that the average Sixty60 customer saves 33% on fuel and vehicle running costs by shopping via the app and paying the R35 delivery fee.
In calculating this saving, Checkers considered that South Africa’s top-selling passenger vehicles cost R7.01 per kilometre to run. By comparison, the average return journey for a Sixty60 delivery is 7.5km.
“If a customer made this trip, it would cost them R52.57. Compared to Sixty60’s R35 delivery fee, this realises a saving of R17.57 per trip,” it said.
This calculation has been independently confirmed by the Automobile Association (AA) of South Africa, a non-profit organisation that tackles motoring issues of national and macro-economic importance on motorists’ behalf.
Checkers Sixty60 one-hour on-demand grocery delivery service launched in late 2019, just prior to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020.
In December 2021, the Shoprite Group said it had entered into a joint venture with its existing Checkers Sixty60 logistics partner, the RTT Group, in which both parties will own 50%.
“We anticipate this transaction will add to the more than 4,000 jobs already created by Sixty60 as we continue to grow in the communities in which we operate,” said Shoprite Group chief executive Pieter Engelbrecht.
“We consider the combined capability we have built with RTT to be a critical competitive advantage and key to Sixty60’s rapid growth. This RTT On-Demand joint venture will allow the group the opportunity to continue enhancing our order fulfilment and last-mile delivery capabilities whilst giving us the opportunity to grow our precision retailing efforts for our customers,” Engelbrecht said.
Checkers, inclusive of Checkers Hyper, operates from 268 stores in South Africa, while Checkers Sixty60 has rapidly expanded to over 261 stores and has created over 4,100 new jobs – up from 800 at the end of 2020.
Shoprite is the largest private employer in South Africa, employing over 142,600 people, 30,000 of which work within the Checkers brand.
Read: A look at the new smaller Checkers Foods stores – which are aimed at neighbourhoods
