New Sixty60 threat looms for Clicks and Dis-Chem

The runaway success of the Shoprite Group’s Sixty60 on-demand delivery service isn’t just upending the grocery retail market – the convenience, predictability and scale of the service means consumers are resetting their expectations for shopping online. Add to this the launch of the TakealotMORE and Amazon Prime subscription services, which both promise same-day delivery, and it’s clear the market has fundamentally changed. Shoprite Group has been unambiguous: Sixty60 is the “single consumer platform to enable one-hour delivery for all of the Group’s corporate banners”.

Liquorshop has been part of the Sixty60 proposition since inception. General merchandise items from Checkers Hyper stores were added in 2024, and its specialist pet products (primarily food) from Petshop Science in 2025. Aside from the rollout of Sixty60 to select Shoprite locations (where it makes sense), it has not yet added Checkers Outdoor, Little Me or Medirite.

However, work is clearly underway to add these banners to its platform … Image: Supplied Already some products from all three of these banners are available on Sixty60 given that they are ranged in Checkers Hyper stores. It is the last of these banners, Medirite, that surely offers the greatest potential. Medirite already operates from 118 in-store dispensaries and 22 standalone Medirite Plus pharmacies.

Sales across the business unit are up 13.5% for the first six months of Shoprite’s financial year (July to December). Sales at standalone stores are up 73.5% in the period, albeit off a modest base. Sixty60 is Shoprite’s (not-so) secret weapon and allows the group to compete against the two established large pharmacy groups, Clicks and Dis-Chem, with an uneven advantage.

The ‘location’ advantage Competition in the pharmacy market is restricted by the number of licences issued by government. However, Shoprite doesn’t need a footprint of 500 pharmacy counters or stores to compete effectively and efficiently with those larger rivals. Its last-mile logistics leadership means it can serve a larger area from a store than the natural physical catchment area of that store.

Clicks, as an example, has 1 000 stores of which 800-plus are pharmacies. But it needs to keep extending this network to reach a greater proportion of the population. Even with this sizeable store base, it says 53.6% of households in South Africa live within 5km of a …