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Retail

Starbucks in your eyes

Top story is the opening of the first Starbucks store in South Africa, which saw fanatics lining up from the night before. A second Starbucks store will open in Attacq's R5bn Mall of Africa in Midrand on Thursday. "In two years, we think the market will have between 12-15 stores," Taste Holdings CEO Carlo Gonzaga said, adding that the company was also looking at a drive-thru concept. Competitor Famous Brands today announced that it has bought a 51% stake in Lupa Osteria, a chain of three Italian restaurants in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), for an undisclosed amount. "In the short term our plan is to grow Lupa's footprint to six restaurants in KZN; over the long term, we believe that a network of 35 restaurants in SA and select African countries is achievable," said Famous Brands CEO Darren Hele.

This week, #CommerceMonth features Mario Toscano on why uAfrica's eCommerce Awards have been put on hold. Robyn Cooke explains how The Foschini Group is innovating customer functionality, and Georgia Barry gathers insights into Cape Union Mart's three sub brands: Poetry, Old Khaki and the recently launched Tread+Miller. Bonnie Cooper also lets us in on how Roman's Pizza cracked the recipe to a successful franchise. For more, go to the #CommerceMonth special section.

Jessica Taylor, Retail Editor (@Biz_Retail)
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Weekly top stories
Famous Brands buys stake in Lupa Osteria

Famous Brands has bought 51% of Lupa Osteria, a chain of three Italian restaurants in KwaZulu-Natal, for an undisclosed amount... Read

Starbucks opens its first South African store

Zeenat Moorad

By 7.30am on Thursday, when the world's largest coffee company, Starbucks, opened its first store in South Africa, the throng of fans who had been lining up from the night before were desperately in need of a cuppa... Read

#CommerceMonth: Why uAfrica's eCommerce Awards have been put on hold

Jessica Taylor

The eCommerce Awards have been put on hold for 2016 in order to focus on 'building e-commerce tools to make e-commerce in South Africa even better'... Read

Money is tight but alcohol and coffee sales are cooking

Colleen Goko

Times may be tough, but South Africans are not giving up their morning takeaway coffee fix or their after-work tipple... Read

Bottling brainwaves

Buried deep in our brains is a complex infrastructure of nerves known as the limbic system that keeps us alive on the most primal level... Read

Retailers driving cannibalisation, says Pareto executive

Retail cannibalisation is becoming a growing reality in South Africa and, until now, it has been all too easy to place the blame for this squarely at the feet of shopping centre developers. However, on closer inspection, Marius Muller, CEO of shopping centre investor Pareto, believes this retail cannibalisation is largely being driven by retailers themselves... Read


Commerce Month
#CommerceMonth: How The Foschini Group is innovating customer functionality

Jessica Taylor

With the introduction of automated wish list messaging, a special occasion reminder calendar and a stock tracker, Robyn Cooke, head of e-commerce of The Foschini Group (TFG), explains how the online mall is personalising the online shopper experience... read
#CommerceMonth: Slicing into Roman's brand-building secret recipe

Leigh Andrews

Bonnie Cooper, chief marketing officer for Roman's Pizza, lets us in on how they cracked the recipe to a successful franchise... read
#CommerceMonth: Q&A with Cape Union Mart Group

Ruth Cooper

We chat to Georgia Barry e-commerce manager of iconic South African retail brand Cape Union Mart. Gathering insights into their three sub brands; Poetry, Old Khaki and the recently launched Tread+Miller as well as trends in the local online retail spheres. read
Read more
Retail Trends
FNB outlines four trends shaping the SA fuel retail sector
With more than 4600 fuel forecourts currently in operation and more expected in the future, this industry is rapidly growing as a key driver of revenue for fuel stations in South Africa. read
Consumer brands must be prepared for change

Oliver Merkel and Vijay Vishwanath

A decade ago, many analysts looked at two looming trends - the rise of retail consolidation and the proliferation of private labels - and issued dire warnings about the power of consumer-packaged goods brands. Their predictions turned out to be premature... read

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT MARKETING

How to attract, delight & engage with customers in a world filled with distractions.

LEARN MORE



Banking & Finance
Basson chides food stores for using drought as excuse to hike prices
Food suppliers should not use the drought and weak rand as an excuse for unnecessary price hikes, Shoprite CEO Whitey Basson said on Monday... read
Commercial Property
The Mall of Africa promises something for everyone
The new Mall of Africa in Waterfall, Midrand, will feature a choice of 300-plus stores, restaurants, entertainment and services, and the very latest in mall design when it opens next week, on 28 April 2016... read
CSI
Shoprite and Checkers customers raise R200k to help drought victims
Shoprite and Checkers customers have helped raise R200,000 for drought-stricken communities across South Africa since March 2016, which will be used to drill new boreholes, refurbish broken ones, as well as to support recovery efforts in severely affected communities... read
Spar sponsors Wildfees festival
A new partnership will see one of South Africa's top six festivals continue to grow and contribute to community upliftment in the Sundays River, according to Spar Kirkwood Wildsfees board chairman Paul Marais... read
Distribution
ESD facilitates smoother sales to channel partners

Anton Vukic

Electronic software distribution (ESD) has seen significant growth over the past few years, and the channel, in particular, is increasingly using this delivery mechanism in order to improve efficiencies and reduce costs... read
E-commerce
10 great merchant account providers (that aren't PayPal and Google Wallet)

Tiffany Rowe

When your e-commerce dreams are new and you aren't yet sure how to run an online store, it makes sense that you would use the most popular online payment services providers on the web. Indeed, Paypal and Google Wallet offer some interesting and exciting merchant services when you have no clue what you need or how you want your shop to function... read
8 key factors affecting your e-commerce platform's SEO

Manish Bhalla

For each and every website owner, SEO is the most critical aspect. However, very few know its importance as far as e-commerce marketplaces are concerned. Studies have suggested that 44% of all online purchases begin with an online search. This means that every other order placed on your e-commerce store originates from search results... read
Exhibitions & Events
Successful expansion into Africa to be discussed at SAPICS conference
Many South African manufacturers' efforts to expand into Africa have failed. Two mistakes - according to speakers on the line-up for the 2016 SAPICS conference for supply chain professionals - are applying familiar product-focused processes, and discounting the importance of working within the existing framework of local culture... read
The Clothing Bank gets international award
The Clothing Bank, a local non-profit business, has won the 2016 Schwab Foundation's Social Entrepreneur of the Year award - an international honour for outstanding examples of social entrepreneurship - with the support of some of South Africa's major retailers including the Mr Price Group... read
FMCG
Rushton shuffles in new board at main Distell subsidiary

Ann Crotty

There is no mention of an "old guard" in Distell's announcement that five of the executive directors on the board of its unlisted operating company will be replaced by executives who joined the firm after Richard Rushton's appointment as MD in 2013. The changes do not affect listed Distell Group's board... read
Franchising
Starbucks creates a buzz at first store in SA

Colleen Goko

Excited caffeinistas queued outside of the newly opened Starbucks in Rosebank on Thursday, paying no mind to the cold or drizzle... read
Green Sustainability
Significant growth reported by Faithful to Nature
There's scant research on the status of ethical consumerism in South Africa, but the 2015 Ethical Markets Report 2015 by the UK's Ethical Consumer reported an 8% rise in the UK, valued at GBP38 billion, despite a highly challenging fiscal year in that country. read
Woolies tops list of renewable energy retailers

Charlotte Mathews

Woolworths took top honours in a ranking of the commitments of SA's five biggest retailers to renewable energy compiled by environment lobby group Greenpeace Africa, while rival Shoprite Group was last... read
Packaging
No Africa plans at Astrapak

Fifi Peters

Astrapak, a manufacturer of plastic packaging material, has no immediate plans to enter other African economies, despite tough operating conditions in SA... read
Fix-a-Form case study: Paramount Home Entertainment

Issued by Pyrotec

In a 'Movie Feast' campaign targeted at DVD viewers only, Paramount Pictures in the UK chose to attach discount vouchers for popular food and drinks to their DVD cases... read
Regulatory
Let's hope cooldrink tax isn't just a sugar rush

Virusha Subban and Yonatan Sher

The tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, announced by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in his February budget speech, will come into effect on 1 April next year... read
Cash and carry shops non-compliant with SARS regulations
The South African Revenue Service (Sars) has done over 100 inspections of "cash and carry" businesses in Gauteng in the past month, it said in a statement on Wednesday... read
Clover changes low-fat milk to comply with new legislation
In keeping with its Clover's 'Way Better' promise and in line with the R260: Agricultural Product Standards Act passed by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Clover will be implementing a change to the fat content of its low-fat milk variant... read
'Toothless' regulator fails to act on Lewis

Ann Crotty

In a damning indictment of the National Credit Regulator's (NCR's) perceived inability to enforce any of its findings, the Lewis share price remained unchanged on Tuesday, following news that the NCR had again referred the furniture retailer to the National Consumer Tribunal for alleged breaches of the National Credit Act... read
Research
Is SA's health trend boosting fruit juice sales?

Issued by Insight Survey

Surely, the health fundi battalion, armed with neon à la mode apparel and spurned on by draconian dietary ideology, must be boosting RTD juice sales as they wage their corporeal war against the proverbial 'bulge'?... read
Retail Marketing
Clicks's marketing push drives double-digit growth

Colleen Goko

Aggressive retail sales promotions have helped drive foot traffic to beauty and pharmaceutical group Clicks, which reported double-digit interim profit growth... read
Marketing to Millennials

Issued by Pyrotec

Millennials or Gen Yers - those born between the early 1980s to the early 2000s - are an important generation for marketers and brand owners to get to grips with... read
Retailers
Lewis to oppose new referral to consumer watchdog
Furniture chain Lewis will oppose a request by the National Credit Regulator that the National Consumer Tribunal order it to refund customers of its "club fees" and maintenance plans... read
Supply Chain
Supply chain failures can be prevented, says SAPICS GM
Supply chain failure can result in empty store shelves, infrastructure in various states of breakdown, basic services and resources that are unavailable... read
Technology
Scanning your trolley load in one shot

Meshan Morar

It's a Saturday and you're one of many shoppers standing in a slow-moving queue at a supermarket till. If that store was using radio frequency identification (RFID) which can scan an entire trolley in one action, you would have been home long ago... read
International
PepsiCo first quarter net profits drop
NEW YORK - Non-alcoholic beverage giant PepsiCo Inc reported on Monday a first quarter drop in profits and the sixth consecutive drop in sales blamed on a strong dollar... read
Coca-Cola sales fall on strong dollar, weak Europe demand

Yashaswini Swamynathan

BENGALURU - Coca-Cola's sales fell for the fourth straight quarter as demand for its fizzy drinks declined in Europe and a strong dollar eroded the value of sales in markets outside the US, including Latin America... read
More International
Jobs offered
International Marketing Digital Brand Manager - Cape Town
International marketing digital brand manager - fashion brands. Read more >>



Supply Chain Administrator - Johannesburg
Brand SA seeks a supply chain administrator. Read more >>




New events to diarise
Marketing your business for success
Upbeat Marketing (Pty) Ltd - 25 Apr 2016, Johannesburg


Customer service exellence workshop
Pinnacle Corporate Learning - 28 Apr 2016, Johannesburg


Cosmo Mall Mother's Day Market
Cosmo Mall - 1 May 2016 to 8 May 2016, Johannesburg


Sales and negotiation
Profit Re-Engineering - 4 May 2016 to 5 May 2016, Johannesburg | 18 May 2016 to 19 May 2016, Cape Town | 1 Jun 2016 to 2 Jun 2016, Durban | 22 Jun 2016 to 23 Jun 2016, Johannesburg


CIPS Pan Africa Conference and Supply Management Awards 2016
CIPS - 11 May 2016 to 12 May 2016, Johannesburg


Short Course in Customer Experience Practice
Enterprises University of Pretoria - 25 May 2016 to 27 May 2016, Johannesburg


Stakeholder engagement management
PRISA - 1 Jun 2016 to 2 Jun 2016, Randburg


Brandlove customer journey design course
Brandlove - 16 Jun 2016 to 17 Jun 2016, Cape Town | 7 Jul 2016 to 8 Jul 2016, Johannesburg


African Stomach Trade Industry Conference 2016
Ntsiki Business and IT International (Paty) Ltd. - 5 Aug 2016, Cape Town


Commercial Equipment Africa Exhibition 2016
Guangdong Grandeur International Exhibition Group - 5 Aug 2016 to 7 Aug 2016, Johannesburg


Upcoming events
We Are Africa - 2 May 2016 to 5 May 2016, Cape Town
WeAreAfrica is more than a trade event. It brings a curated selection of travel brands, world-class buyers and press to Cape Town, determined to tell Africa's individual stories. Read more >>

Quotes
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Correction does much, but encouragement does more."
Christian D. Larson
"Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle."
Michael Jordan
"Always turn a negative situation into a positive situation."
Theodore Roosevelt
"Believe you can and you're halfway there."
Winston Churchill
"If you're going through hell, keep going."

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