Long-life milk has topped the shopping list for travellers this festive season, according to Woolworths CEO, Roy Bagattini.
Speaking to media last week, he said that data revealed an interesting pattern in holidaymakers and stores are hard at work managing the logistics to meet the demands.
Bagattini said one of Woolworths' key strategies is to choose products that bring customers to their stores and they have found that long-life milk does just that.
According to the CEO, speaking to News24, this strategy makes it difficult for retailers that are four or five times the size of Woolworths because if they have to match the Woolworths price for long-life milk it is a big commitment from them versus Woolworths.
Bagattini said that they have been targeted in their promotions through the holiday period and it has worked for them. The supply has to match where the demand is but you don't know where customers are going to go.
As a significant amount of the food products from Woolworths are fresh, logistics can be challenging on the food side. For example, if there has been one bad report about Durban and all of the product has been shipped to Durban, then there is a problem, according to Bagattini.
To have an idea of where South Africans are heading to for the festive season, Woolworths has developed a range of data points and the data shown that Durban is looking promising in 2024.
The data is also showing the Garden Route strong this year while the Plettenberg Bay store does more trading in December than Sandton City. Another focus area is the V&A Waterfriont store with major cruise liner arrivals in December 2024 which has a significant impact on trade.
Strong sales growth for Woolworths
According a IOL report, Woolworths Holdings reported promising rise in sales and turnover for the 18 weeks leading up to November 3.
The retailer recorded growth of 6.5% and 6.8% respectively compared to the same period last year.
Although there was constrained consumer discretionary spending power, the retailer's food business delivered market-leading turnover and concession sales growth of 12.1% and 7.3% for the period under review in comparison to the previous year's contrasting period.
Woolworths attributed their higher turnover and sales to positive underlying volume growth on improved availability, ongoing innovation, and our enhanced overall value proposition.
Online food sales for the period under review grew by 36.9%, contributing 6.2% of food sales for the category while Woolies Dash also provided a sales growth of 54.4%.
The fashion, beauty and home segment of Woolies also experience accelerated turnover and sales by 3.5% and by 2.8% respectively.
IOL Business