Pick n Pay asap! is bringing social commerce to grocery shopping in South Africa with the launch of Pick n Pay Inspire, a new shoppable video feed built directly into the Pick n Pay asap! app.

2026’s South African Customer Report states the tough economy and AI Search impacts sales. With a 5% inflation rate - the highest in two years - the oscillating oil price and stagnant economic growth of a meagre 1,2%, consumers are battling it out with brands and businesses that show little empathy for their customers. 

Sixty60 customers can now chat to Pixie, the retailer's AI shopping assistant, using text, voice and images to get personalised shopping help, meal inspiration and product recommendations.

Woolworths is strengthening its digital retail ecosystem with My Woolies Chef, an AI-powered food assistant designed to simplify meal planning and enhance the customer shopping experience.

Woolworths is expanding its digital offering with the launch of My Woolies Chef, an artificial intelligence-powered assistant that helps customers plan meals and shop for ingredients more conveniently.

Since its launch in April 2026, Sixty60's AI-powered shopping assistant, Pixie, has rapidly become one of the platform's most successful product innovations, with millions of personalised shopping interactions helping customers save time on one of life's most repetitive tasks: grocery shopping.

By Ntombenhle “Enhle” Annegbe-Enahoro, IPP Product Manager at Ecentric

South Africa has never had more ways to pay. At the point of sale in 2026, a consumer can tap or insert a card, open a banking app and make a PayShap transfer, scan a QR while deciding to split the purchase across three interest-free instalments using PayJustNow or Payfex, tap their phone to pay via digital wallet, redeem from any one of a growing number of loyalty and rewards programmes, or hand over cash, all while the next customer is awaiting their turn to pay. The infrastructure to support innovative payment solutions is evolving rapidly in the country.

Access to robotics, coding and digital learning is being introduced for the first time at Joe Slovo Engineering High School in Khayelitsha through a newly established lab by the Shoprite Foundation. The Western Cape now joins the Foundation’s national programme focused on technology-driven and future-focused skills development.

Source: Tesco PLC

One of the most revolutionary retailing improvements in decades gets underway in earnest this week when Tesco becomes the first supermarket in the UK to upgrade an entire product range over to a new scanning system.