Grocery retailers show how slim South Africans’ wallets are
If retailers’ updates are anything to go by, your salary is just not going as far as you would want. Christmas trading updates from grocery retailers give yet another indication of how empty consumer wallets are after filling up trolleys.
At first glance, updates by Shoprite, Woolworths and Spar for the market show revenue growth. However, most of it is not coming from employed people buying more, but rather from food and goods costing more — which is not real growth at all.
Internal price inflation in the 18 weeks to end-january was 5.15% at wholesaler Spar, which sells goods to franchise stores. Its grocery sales rose about 2.8%, less than price inflation, meaning it sold less than the same period the year before.
Spar franchises are often in small holiday towns and coastal villages, so it may just have lost out as people stayed home in December.
Shoprite and Checkers experienced turnover growth in SA, excluding liquor sales, rising to 5.6%, barely a blip above price inflation of 4.3% in the period between June and December 27.
Only Woolworths did better in the half-year to December, showing off the more resilient middle class with volume growth of 3.8%. Woolies food revenue growth jumped to 10.9% and prices rose 7.1%, which is, in part, a reflection of people buying food with higher margins.
These figures fell in June and the later period when Covid-19 relief funds and extra grants were still being paid, suggesting that in 2021 shopping baskets and waists may have to shrink in size.
Shoprite and Checkers experienced turnover growth in SA, excluding liquor sales