Checkers vs. Woolworths - in a race for market share
How South Africa's biggest supermarkets are positioning themselves to win.
The TygerBurger community newspaper is one of the last objects that still, occasionally, finds its way into my post box (if one excludes spam).
This newspaper usually has several inserts. This week there were (inter alia) inserts from Woolworths and from Checkers.
Below are two (quick poor quality) cell-phone photos:
Woolworths
Checkers
Comparison?
So, Woolworths is now in the 'price' business and Checkers is in the 'desire' business? Only a few years ago, this juxtaposition would have been considered absurd.
True, this turn of events is not entirely new, but the question still is how the hell we got here? Did this happen as a result of strategy (at the one extreme) or prolonged sequences of knee jerks (at the other extreme).
Checkers Strategy
From the Checkers side, this morphing seems to make sense from a strategic perspective. Shoprite (of which Checkers form part) clearly has “Grow share in premium and fresh food” in their online published strategy. They are telling Woolworths, in so many words, "we are coming for you". And, more importantly, they are telling potential investors the same - while telling customers the story through advertising and marketing.
Woolworths Strategy
Woolworths' 'strategy' looks like this. Where's the we-will-be-cheap part?
And, while we are now looking at this:
What does wording such as "Create further value..." mean? Create which types of further value? (A good example of how 'further value' can be clearly identified is as follows: "Grow share in premium ... food".)
And, given the previous question (and the lack of specifics), how does an investor know which types of further value will not be pursued? Strategy is also about making the hard calls to forego some opportunities so that others can be pursued more vigorously.
“Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).”
And she did so because of some inserts in her newspaper. Marketing matters.