A Pick n Pay Clothing new-look store. Picture: Supplied
Retailer Pick n Pay said yesterday as it opened its 300th stand-alone store in South Africa that its clothing unit sourced more than 40% of its range locally and remained focused on growing this.
In a bid to develop local designers as part of its strategy, Pick n Pay Clothing said in a statement that it had collaborated with South African designer Gavin Rajah for its Futurewear collaboration initiative, to curate exclusive collections at affordable prices.
Pick n Pay Clothing general manager Hazel Pillay said: “We rely heavily on our local manufacturing base to create consistency. This has helped us largely mitigate the impact of global supply challenges the industry has experienced over the past three years. We’ve grown local content from 28% three years ago to 40% now, and we’re not stopping there.”
The statement came as Statistics South Africa also said yesterday that while retail trade sales decreased by 0.6% year-on-year in October, the largest positive contributor was retailers in textiles, clothing, footwear and leather goods (contributing 0.5 of a percentage point).
The clothing retailer of casualwear said it opened its 300th company-owned stand-alone store as it continued to expand its footprint.
It aimed to open 60 corporate and five franchise stores by the end of February.
It said this was more company-owned clothing store openings than the past three years combined (59).
“The clothing division plans to open around 60 to 80 stores during its next financial year,” Pick n Pay Clothing said.
According to the retailer, the new stores were being designed on a four-star sustainable rating to meet the division’s aspiration to target a wide customer base in a more sustainable way.
The group said the clothing business reported impressive growth, based on transforming from largely a womenswear fashion business to a more diversified range, including baby, children, and menswear.
Pillay said: “Our refined value proposition appeals to an array of customers in South Africa, and the new diversified range is already seeing us grow market share across all divisions.
“Our consistent, everyday proposition has become relatable to all customer segments - and with more stores, we are becoming even more accessible.“
For the first half of the 2023 financial year, Pick n Pay continued its strong performance, with 14.8% sales growth, driven by both solid like-for-like sales and new stores.
“Our greater focus on trendy products through collaborations with top local designers has contributed to the aspiration and fashionability of our ladies’ wear,” Pillay said.
Meanwhile, Pick n Pay Clothing’s online store aimed to improve customer accessibility.
“This has cemented our business as an omnichannel offering to our customers,” Pillay said.
Pillay said selected Pick n Pay supermarkets and hypermarkets also featured certain ranges, and Pillay said these were “specially selected to appeal to a more ‘grab and go’ shopping behaviour”.
“Through our stand-alone stores, we’ve established familiarity with our offering – where customers spend more time browsing and trying on clothes – which means customers increasingly shop our ranges without the need to try on first,” she said.
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