The highly anticipated new Walmart store in Clearwater Mall in Gauteng has opened its doors. Bizcommunity's Danette Breitenbach attended a pre-store opening on Thursday, 20 November, to find out what the hype is all about.
Dries D'Hooghe, chief operating officer, Massmart, with the staff of the first Walmart store to open in SA (Image: Danette Breitenbach @ Bizcommunity)
The 3,500-square-metre store offers a variety of products, from local to international brands. Before exploring what’s available, we wanted to know the prices, especially since Walmart does not offer promotions.
EDLP a key differentiator
What it does promise is the lowest-priced basket every day of the week. Dries D'Hooghe, chief operating officer, Massmart, explains what this means.
“Walmart’s Every Day Low Prices (EDLP) is one of our key differentiators and is the concept that made Walmart great in the rest of the world.
“EDLP means that consumers can expect this price every day of the month. This takes the hassle out of shopping for consumers.
This approach builds customer trust by providing price stability. Consumers know they can walk into the store at any time and trust that they will get the lowest price.
He adds that this does not mean that every item in the basket is the lowest price item in that category, but that the complete basket is the lowest price every day of the week.
To prove this, the Walmart leadership team did a comparison with two of its competitors for a basket for a family of four.
“It was a risk, and I was quite nervous, but it shows that we are the lowest cost,” says D'Hooghe.
EDLP is just one of the benefits the brand claims it will provide to South African consumers.
Walmart's comparison with two of its competitors for a basket for a family of four proves it is the cheapest by basket (Image: Danette Breitenbach @ Bizcommunity)
Best of Walmart with the best of SA
It says it is bringing the best of Walmart together with the best of South Africa, and this is illustrated in the close relationships the retailer has formed with local suppliers ranging from fresh produce, which is supplied by around 15 local suppliers, to meat and clothing.
For meat, they have a new partnership with Sparta Foods, the second biggest feedlot business in South Africa, with a vertical supply chain, so everything from the feedlot is done in their business.
They have developed new products specifically for Walmart.
Another example is a locally sourced ice cream cookies range, Crumbs & Cream. The store also features an array of local fast-food brands, from Romans, Steers, Mozambique, to Wimpy, while Col'Cacchio has developed a special range of air fryer products just for Walmart.
Walmart used a local supplier for its children's clothing (Image: Danette Breitenbach @ Bizcommunity)
For clothing, a local success story is their supplier of children’s clothing. A small business in Durban, the store procured 15,000 of their children's clothes to showcase on the first day of the opening.
“We will continue to find the best of Walmart with the best of South Africa and support local suppliers and job creation.
“We have over 160 new articles already in development for the first quarter of next year," says D'Hooghe.
What is new for Walmart is a cooked chicken counter as well as a coffee station with pastries positioned as you enter the store. The chicken supplier is local and supplies the hot chicken counter and chicken products to Walmart.
D'Hooghe points out that Walmart, as Massmart in Africa, has had long-standing relationships with many of these vendors, some of which are more than 10 years old.
“We've really partnered with them to try and make sure that we give the best quality at a good price and of great value to our consumers.”
International brands
The scale of Walmart is what allows it to renew its assortment continuously and bring in international brands.
The variety of international products available in stores ranges from the US to the UK and Dubai and includes toys, kitchen appliances and confectionery.
Makeup brands Essence and Catrice can be found in-store at Walmart (Image: Danette Breitenbach @ Bizcommunity)
The store has also introduced the makeup brands Essence and Catrice to its stores, while the electronics and multimedia aisle mirrors the US stores.
For toys, they leveraged Walmart's global top 100 toys to continue to bring innovation to the market. They also introduced Lego into the store, which is one of Walmart's biggest brands.
The much-in-demand Barbie and Hot Wheels toys have a big presence in the store, as well as Lego, which is one of Walmart's biggest brands.
Dries D'Hooghe, chief operating officer, Massmart shows off Walmart's Labubu Exciting Macarons
For its opening, it secured the three versions of the Labubu Exciting Macarons, which the store says are the cheapest in the market.
It also has a Fuggler, which was designed exclusively for the store and is only available at Walmart.
Walmart’s Fuggler range was designed exclusively for the store (Image: Danette Breitenbach @ Bizcommunity)
On the lifestyle side, the Drew Barrymore brand of kitchen appliances, from the air fryer, digital kettle, mixer and 4-slice toaster are available.
Beautiful by Drew Barrymore is also available at Walmart (Image: Danette Breitenbach @ Bizcommunity)
In confectionery, many of the US's famous and favourite are available from Sour Patch and Gummy Clusters.
Walmart's range of US and international confectionery (Image: Danette Breitenbach @ Bizcommunity)
D'Hooghe says these are the kind of products they want to bring into the country.
“We want to bring the best to South Africa from the world, not only from the US, so we also have products from Mexico and South America and have some exciting products arriving from Australia soon that have never been seen in South Africa.
“We will continue to bring new products in every couple of weeks so that we can excite and delight the younger customers to come shopping with mom and dad.”
He explains that they want to have 90% of the products that everybody wants, and then continue to have 10 to 15% products rotating for excitement.
“As time goes on, we will figure out what South Africans like and then give it to them.”
What Walmart is really famous for is events, but the management was tight-lipped about its Black Friday events. All they would say was watch this space.
