Game and Builders Warehouse owner Massmart is setting its sights on e-commerce growth with a possible new deal to acquire a majority stake in online shopping and delivery service OneCart.

Ahmed Areff | News24

It announced on Wednesday morning that "negotiations are at an advanced stage and Massmart is hopeful to conclude discussions in the coming weeks pending finalisation of a few key matters."

OneCart is partnered with numerous retailers, including Pick n Pay, Makro, DisChem, Clicks and Woolworths among others, and allows customers to shop across multiple stores through the site, and have the goods delivered in one batch. 

"The proposed acquisition is consistent with Massmart's strategy to invest in and accelerate e-commerce growth, particularly in the fast fast growing on-demand delivery segment," Massmart CEO Mitchell Slape said

"A key objective going forward would be to invest in aggressively growing and fully supporting OneCart’s existing independent retailer marketplace model that enables customers to order from multiple retailers via a single platform."

According to Massmart OneCart achieved year-on-year growth of 400% since its inception. The company was created in 2016 and launched to the public in 2018.

The OneCart announcement comes Massmart reported earlier in August that it wrote down the value of Game by R570 million, and blamed weak sales on shoppers staying away from regional malls and retail centres due to Covid-19 concerns.

Total sales of R7.6 billion for the six months to end-June came in at 7.6% lower than the same period last year - despite stores being closed for weeks in 2020 due to the hard lockdown. Sales from its South African stores were almost 5% lower than last year.