Leading South African retailer Pick n Pay has announced the launch of its unlimited free delivery service, ratcheting up its competition with rival Checkers. The move comes just days after Pick n Pay welcomed its new CEO, Sean Summers, who is wasting no time in making strategic changes. Pick n Pay is relaunching its asap! on-demand delivery service, offering unlimited deliveries via its app without the need for a subscription. This puts the retailer in direct competition with Checkers, which recently introduced a subscription-based service for unlimited deliveries.
Checkers is currently the market leader in on-demand grocery delivery, with its Sixty60 service experiencing impressive growth of 81.5% over the past year. In contrast, in-app purchases still make up less than 5% of Pick n Pay’s total sales. To capitalize on the increasing number of customers shopping through its app, Pick n Pay aims to provide a smoother and faster online shopping experience with improved product availability and quicker delivery times.
The relaunched asap! app offers a range of benefits for customers, including more than 25,000 easily searchable products through its Smart AI search technology. This AI-assisted search feature learns from customers’ shopping habits to provide personalized and relevant results. Additionally, the app offers in-store pricing, exclusive deals, promotions, and loyalty rewards. The asap! Fresh Crew of personal shoppers has also undergone intensive training to enhance their efficiency in picking and delivering orders.
To encourage customers to try its unlimited free delivery service, Pick n Pay is offering a special code, FRESHAPP, which can be used by all customers until the end of October 2023. While the retailer has hinted at the possibility of extending the offer, Checkers has introduced its own monthly subscription service called Xtra Savings Plus. For R99 per month, subscribers receive unlimited free Sixty60 grocery deliveries, personalized offers, and additional in-store discounts.
Checkers’ Xtra Savings benefit program has been lauded as the best retail rewards program in the South African Loyalty Awards, providing customers with savings of R13.5 billion on their groceries in the past financial year. To promote the new subscription service, Checkers has launched a campaign featuring spoofs of famous Tom Cruise roles, highlighting the unbeatable value offered by its unlimited delivery subscription.
Both Pick n Pay and Checkers are vying for a larger share of the burgeoning online grocery delivery market in South Africa. By offering unlimited delivery services, they aim to attract more customers and retain their loyalty. With the convenience of on-demand grocery delivery becoming increasingly important to consumers, it remains to be seen which retailer’s strategy will come out on top in this competitive landscape.
