Mon Oct 28 14:51:00 UTC 2013
The Shoprite Group has once again been honoured in the recently announced 2013 The Times / Sowetan Retail Awards with its flagship brand, Shoprite, achieving the Grand Prix award as top retailer overall for the fifth consecutive year. Several of the other brands in the Group also took top-ranking positions throughout various categories based on consumer feedback in the survey conducted by independent research agency TNS.
The Shoprite supermarket chain also claimed the award for providing the best Overall Customer Experience in the Supermarket & Hypermarket category and took third position in the category for Household Appliances, up one place from 2012. In the specialist furniture store category House & Home, previously in 9th position, took a giant leap into third spot in 2013. MediRite Pharmacies were ranked third in the Health and Beauty category, also up one place from 2012, and Shoprite LiquorShop was placed third in the Liquor category.
Shoprite Checkers marketing director Neil Schreuder expressed his delight and said that Shoprite believes in keeping things simple and being honest and transparent with its customers. “The Shoprite brand’s positioning is built on its commitment to “lower prices that you can trust always”. Shoprite is the low price champion and low price leadership is its strategic point of differentiation. It aims to ensure that South Africans from all walks of life can afford to have their food needs met regardless of their income level. Grocery shoppers literally interact with the brand every week and consumers can feel the difference at the till when buying their weekly groceries.
“This principle of consistent and sustained price leadership has entrenched its price perception for over 40 years. It has always worked hard at running a low cost business model and with an early move into centralised distribution. Shoprite has ensured that it can deliver products to its consumers with the utmost efficiency,” said Schreuder.
The Shoprite Group is now the largest supermarket retailer in Africa by turnover, market share, market capitalisation, number of customers and number of employees. The Shoprite chain is the Group’s core business and serves the mass middle market (predominantly LSM 4 - 7). According to the latest AMPS research (July 2013) 58% of adults now shop at Shoprite having gained 2.1 million shoppers and serving the largest customer base in South Africa, with 21.6 million shoppers.
Although Shoprite is one of the oldest grocery chains in the country, it keeps on re-inventing itself to stay ahead of its customers’ needs as new technology develops. The brand has recently developed innovative mobile phone based technologies such as Eezi-Coupons – which offers customers more than R2000 of aggregated instant grocery coupons on their cell phone and also helps Shoprite to understand and deliver on customers ‘shopping preferences in more detail.
The Shoprite brand’s premise has always been that the true reward customers desire is the total at the bottom of their till slips. This strategy remains as relevant as it was 40 years ago and is borne out by AMPS data that names Shoprite as the supermarket chain with more loyal shoppers than any other retailer in South Africa.