Game still works in smaller towns and cities, but in metros more are likely to become Walmarts – likely at the expense of the earlier plan to convert these to mini Makros. Picture:s: Supplied are we as South Africans so endlessly fascinated with America? On a random November weekday afternoon, nearly a week after opening, Walmart Clearwater Mall was heaving with shoppers.
On the weekend it opened, queues to get into the store looked more like a stadium concert entrance than not. The last time this many people queued for a Game store opening was easily more than a decade ago. Landlord Hyprop says the day the Walmart store opened, foot count at Clearwater Mall was around 85 000 compared to the average for Saturdays of about 37 000.
The opening of its Fourways Mall store on Saturday 28 November (it missed Black Friday by a day, either deliberately or by accident) was no different. Every second trolley being pushed through the mall and its cavernous parkade was blue. What’s peculiar is that the Walmart offering in South Africa looks not dissimilar to when Game added the fresh food (baked goods, produce and meat) and frozen categories to its stores a decade ago.
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This strategy to compete with the Shoprite Group, Pick n Pay and Spar ultimately failed, with Massmart announcing in early 2020 that it would take fresh and frozen food out of its stores and add clothing basics and expand its general merchandise offering to utilise the space. The problem then is that while you could do a full grocery shop at Game, assortment was limited. The then CEO of Massmart, Guy Hayward, admitted in 2015 that: “You won’t have four choices of tomato sauce, for example.
Because we can’t compete on convenience or quality, we will compete on price.” This never really worked. Not only was choice limited for shoppers, but a narrower range also meant fewer suppliers and more limited buying from them (which hindered Game’s ability to discount). These first two Walmart stores are an improvement on Game’s fresh offer, especially when it comes to meat, but ranges of products remain quite narrow.
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