Big Sixty60 expansion announced

The Sixty60 on-demand delivery service will soon be available at select Shoprite stores across South Africa as the retail Group expands the offering to its largest supermarket chain. The service was previously limited to Checkers outlets.

Shoprite said that the service had successfully been piloted at stores across the Western Cape and is now ready to launch in 19 stores in eight South African provinces.

“After many months of working feverishly behind the scenes, we are excited to introduce Shoprite Sixty60 to locations where it can have a meaningful impact for consumers needing the convenience of home delivery,” said Neil Schreuder, Shoprite Group’s strategy and innovation chief.

Shoprite said Sixty60 was already available from its Atlantis and Jabulani branches, in the Western Cape and Soweto respectively.

In March, the service will be rolled out at its Kleinmond, Western Cape, and Ga-Nala, Mpumalanga branches.

Checkers Sixty60, which was launched in 2019, has seen significant growth, with the Shoprite Group’s most recent results reporting that sales had grown by 47.1% over the second half of last year, compared to a 63.1% increase in the first half.

This is according to the retail giant’s unaudited financial results for the 26 weeks ending 29 December 2024 released today.

The Shoprite Group also expanded the offering to an additional 96 stores over the period, now servicing 601 stores in total.

Shoprite CEO Pieter Engelbrecht said the service was also focussing on its general merchandise delivery.

“Our ShopriteX digital team, together with our Checkers store operations and Pingo Delivery team, successfully delivered millions of orders over the six months,” Engelbrecht said.

“This was done while re-platforming our Checkers Sixty60 tech stack to upgrade functionality and incorporate same-day general merchandise delivery to our on-demand offer.”

Engelbrecht said that Shoprite hopes to add over 10,000 general merchandise products to its re-platformed Checkers Sixty60 app.

The launch of Hyper on Sixty60 in October 2024 significantly expanded the delivery service’s catalogue to include 10,000 general merchandise items.

This allowed users to order a wide range of products from various prominent brands, including Apple, Dyson, Thule, Smeg, Samsung, and Harmon Kardon.

Shoprite recently told MyBroadband that its general merchandise offering has been performing well and contributed to an increase of around 10% in new users using the platform.

The most popular items purchased through Hyper on Sixty60 include baby essentials such as car seats and strollers, gardening products, large toys, camping and outdoor equipment, and bulk grocery staples like long-life UHT milk six-packs.

In December 2024, MyBroadband compared Checkers Hyper on Sixty60 and Takealot pricing for tech and electronics common to both stores and found that the Shoprite-owned platform was generally more affordable.

The two retailers’ prices matched for only one product — a Yoco Neo Touch card machine for R999.

Checkers’ Hyper offering was cheaper for eight of the remaining 14 products compared. There were marked price differences for products like the 6.2L Philips air fryer, 40-inch Full HD JVC TV, and PlayStation 5 DualSense controller.