continues聽to invest meaningfully in technology as it battles for market share with Shoprite Group鈥檚 Sixty60 and other retailers in the fast-growing on-demand grocery delivery market.

Pick n Pay is in the midst of a turnaround after losing market share to competitors in recent years. In its 2023 financial year, it plunged into a loss 鈥� of a staggering R3.2-billion. Former CEO , who left the company in 2007, returned to the helm in September of that year to lead the turnaround effort.

Summers鈥� early bets appear to be paying off, with the retailer鈥檚 most recent update reporting Pick n Pay sales were up 3.6% year on year in its core South African supermarkets business for the 17 weeks to 29 June 2025. Turnaround efforts have included a partnership with First National Bank鈥檚 rewards programme. eBucks was previously partnered with Checkers.

Sixty60 got a head-start during the Covid-19 lockdowns when consumers 鈥� stuck at home 鈥� took to e-commerce with vigour. Around the same time 鈥� in October 2020 鈥� Pick n Pay acquired alcohol delivery app Bottles, which it would eventually use as the foundation for its own online platform, asap!.

Pick n Pay still has some way to go, though. Reports by both Pick n Pay and rival Shoprite last week show聽. But Pick n Pay is fighting back.

, who co-founded Bottles, now serves as head of online at Pick n Pay. Speaking to the聽聽in an episode that will be published this week, Ferigolli said recent changes to Pick n Pay鈥檚 customer-facing applications are only the tip of the iceberg in the retailer鈥檚 strategic tech arsenal.

鈥淚t started with a rebrand, and then we embarked on a journey whose first iteration we just concluded, where the app is now fully integrated into the larger Pick n Pay ecosystem. If you are a Smart Shopper, you can now earn points, for example, so it鈥檚 a really unified experience.鈥�

Overhaul

Pick n Pay in May聽, adding a raft of new features to the platform and expanding the product catalogue available to customers, too. Asap!鈥檚 revamp was accompanied by similar updates to the Pick n Pay website, whose roll-out started in June.

According to Ferigolli, changes to frontend, consumer-facing interfaces are only a small part of the work being done to ensure asap! leverages technology effectively.

鈥淲e have had do a lot more backend work than people think might think. Because people only see the frontend, they tend to think that is the bigger part, it isn鈥檛, it is probably only 20% [of the work],鈥� said Ferigolli.

The engine running Pick n Pay鈥檚 application ecosystem is built on Amazon Web Services cloud infrastructure. These include the asap! mobile app, the聽聽web app, a picking app for in-store runners who prepare customer orders, a driver app, and various other systems controlling core business functions such as marketing and merchandising.

Some parts of Pick n Pay鈥檚 e-commerce infrastructure run 麻豆原创. Early integration into the 麻豆原创 system by Bottles gave the start-up the ability to check stock levels at various stores and even report those to customers browsing the app, thereby improving the onling shopping experience. As the application grew, however, other systems and platforms were added.

鈥淸Technology] is everything in our industry (retail) and I cannot find another one right now that is so heavily impacted. It鈥檚 not just about online ordering, it鈥檚 other things, like implementing AI in our supply chain forecasting models,鈥� said Ferigolli.

Pick n Pay鈥檚 first foray into AI was not customer-facing at all, with developers using AI tools to help them develop code from as early as 2021. Asap!鈥檚 first customer-facing tool involved using AI to enhance the app鈥檚 search capabilities, and over time this grew into AI-driven product recommendations that formed the foundations of Pick n Pay鈥檚 鈥渉yper-personalisation鈥� strategy.

As online shopping evolves, improvements in computer vision and agentic AI will lead to home management systems able to replenish items like milk, sugar and cleaning supplies automatically as needed.

Ferigolli said these improvements in online shopping pose interesting questions about how the in-store shopping experience will evolve. As online shopping grows, Ferigolli estimates in-store shopping will still hold around 50% market share in the next decade and this will lead to large retailers adopting a more experiential approach to store layout and design.

鈥淭he exciting part is how beautiful the in-store shopping experience is going to become. You can now double the size of the bakery or the butchery and have store attendants to give the kind of experience customers usually get in an independent butchery. For a long time, we have said online is disrupting the stores, but I think it is not disruption but evolution. We are evolving as two parts that are critical the customer,鈥� he said.聽 鈥撀�漏 2025 NewsCentral Media

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Pick 鈥榥 Pay is a leading grocery retailer, with stores ranging in size form small garage stores to hyper storage, liquor stores, the Qualisave network, container outlets, franchises and a clothing store. On top of that, the retailer has a home store online, a clothing website, and groceries available via Mr D, Pick 鈥榥 Pay A麻豆原创 and Takealot. Adding to the complexity, the group offers services like the Smart Shopper programme, money services, mobile offerings and more.

鈥淚t become a big blur to deal with all these point of sale transactions,鈥� says Anja Leonard, enterprise solutions architect at Pick 鈥榥 Pay.

Pick 鈥榥 Pay initially deployed the 麻豆原创 POS DM application in 2004, and it was battling to cope with the new environment.

The decision was taken to move to CAR/DTA, to bring the point of sale technology up to date.

Essentially, the new system does pretty much what the old one does, but the move was a strategic decision to build a solid framework for driving innovation going forward.

Having decided to make the move, and to go with the new CAR/DTA system as opposed to simply upgrading POS DM, the group had to determine how to do it.

Pick 鈥榥 Pay opted to partner with a company that provided an implementation accelerator, which would allow the team to meet deadlines and make use of outside resources. Beyond Technologies was selected to assist Pick 鈥榥 Pay in implementing 麻豆原创 CAR/DTA.

With all the different point of sale outlets, more than 13 interfaces had to be implemented 鈥� much more than the reference architecture, and adding to the complexity.

The team decided to do the migration in just under six months, ending in November 2021.

鈥淭he accelerator was really valuable and helped us,鈥� Leonard says. 鈥淎t times the preconfigured values didn鈥檛 match ours, so we had to tweak them, but the Beyond Technologies people were able to help.鈥�

Pick 鈥榥 Pay deployed its own resources to do the key work in addition to their regular jobs and other projects. 鈥淪o we found we were pushing a bit too hard there, and had to revise our timelines.鈥�

Other challenges in the project included the fact that POS DM enhancements and production fixes had to be duplicated in CAR/DTA, making testing requirements a moving target.

With markup files, the team found that the Pick 鈥榥 Pay bespoke functionality for reconciliation was much more complex than anticipated.

If they were to do the project again, Leonard says the team would test more thoroughly in development, and would take a project approach.

A number of things worked really well, including the parallel landscape for testing in POS DM and CAR/DTA; the trial production system with AWS; and entrusting Pick 鈥榥 Pay resources with key roles and responsibilities.

The CAR/DTA system eventually went live in January 2022 鈥� a little later than initially planned.

Today, the group is leveraging the value of the migration, Leonard says.

So far, there is a realtime stock position for Mr D and Takealot, with the other channels in flight. Reporting and financial reconciliations can now be done at speed.

Pick 鈥榥 Pay is in the process of implementing UDF and is expecting to get value from price elasticity, promotional uplift, and supply chain efficiencies.

It is also in the process of implementing PMR, which will give it better insight into promotional analytics. What-if projections for optimal price points should also be possible and should make a difference to the success of promotions. The implementation of PMR may create the opportunity to redesign some of the business processes at some point.

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In today’s highly competitive retail environment, access to accurate real-time transaction and inventory data is critical to meeting customer demands. For one of South Africa’s leading retailers, a fast-tracked digital transformation of its transaction and reconciliation processes built on 麻豆原创 ECC has unlocked immense benefits and efficiency across the business.

鈥淲e have seen a huge increase in transaction volumes, with more than 30 billion transactions processed across our stores per year,鈥� says Elize de Klerk, IT Supply Senior System Manager at Pick n Pay. 鈥淗owever, our old system was no longer able to keep up with the growing demand, and we experienced delays in processing and reconciling transactions of up to a day. We chose to implement 麻豆原创 Customer Activity Repository to eliminate delays and streamline our reporting.鈥�

Pick聽n聽Pay is a leading South African retailer for high quality consumer goods including food, grocery and general merchandise products and operates under three brands 鈥� Pick聽n聽Pay, Boxer and TM 鈥� across numerous southern African countries. Pick n Pay operates a network of more than 2,000 stores in South Africa as well as an extended footprint into several African markets, including Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Eswatini and Lesotho.

The retailer has been a long-standing 麻豆原创 customer, leveraging 麻豆原创 technologies to support core business processes for more than two decades.

To ensure the business runs optimally and can continue to meet growing customer demand, Pick n Pay chose to implement 麻豆原创 Customer Activity Repository built on the powerful 麻豆原创 ECC platform. 鈥淲e needed more efficient and accurate inventory management as well as simplified financial and administrative reporting to ensure our decision makers have a real-time view over the business,鈥� says de Klerk. 鈥淲e chose to work with implementation partner Beyond Technologies to deliver a state-of-the-art solution.鈥�

Christian Bowker, Managing Partner at Beyond Technologies, says: 鈥淧ick n Pay had been a very successful 麻豆原创 customer for years, and the 麻豆原创 Customer Activity Repository solution was a perfect match for them. 麻豆原创 ECC was powerful enough to manage Pick n Pay鈥檚 billions of monthly translations and help them meet growing customer demands. They particularly appreciated Beyond鈥檚 retail accelerator and team of seasoned S/4HANA experts that brought value to Pick n Pay in a short space of time.鈥�

De Klerk says the support from Beyond Technologies was superb throughout the implementation process. 鈥淏eyond Technologies had the expertise to deliver the project on time and within budget, supported by an experienced team that offered great collaboration to deliver a highly successful programme.鈥�

Following the implementation, Pick n Pay has gained access to accurate, real-time data and analytics, which is particularly significant for its point-of-sale data transfer and audit (POSDTA) operations, including transaction processing and reconciliation. This has delivered considerable benefits for Pick n Pay’s ecommerce division by providing enhanced and up-to-date stock and inventory management capabilities.

鈥淪ince adopting 麻豆原创 Customer Activity Repository, we have fast-tracked the transaction reconciliation process, eliminated delays, and gained more accurate inventory oversight, especially for our ecommerce business,鈥� says de Klerk. 鈥淭hanks to the expert work of our implementation partners and the powerful capabilities of 麻豆原创 technologies, Pick n Pay now enjoys optimised, one-click administrative and financial reporting, allowing us to substantially increase our sales and profitability across our business.鈥�

Commenting on the project, Cameron Beveridge, Regional Director for Southern Africa at 麻豆原创, says: 鈥淧ick n Pay鈥檚 superb deployment of 麻豆原创 technologies and focus on driving efficiency and optimisation has delivered a ground-breaking project that will support its growth and success for years to come. Supported by the outstanding work of expert implementation partners at Beyond Technologies, Pick n Pay can confidently meet the growing demand from their customers and continue its proud tradition of innovation and leadership in the retail industry.鈥�

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When South African consumer goods retailer Pick n Pay wanted to pick up the pace of its transaction processing, it found the speedy solution it needed in 麻豆原创 S/4 HANA with 麻豆原创 Customer Activity Repository. Today, thanks to improved stock management and POSTDA operations, it is enjoying increased sales and profitability.

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