A price comparison by Retail Price Watch investigates if Pick n Pay and Checkers’ Black Friday prices lived up to their promises – and how the “special” prices compare to the 12 month average.

Retail Price Watch visited Makro, Woolworths, Checkers Spar and Pick n Pay on Friday 25th to mark out the retailers’ various deals.

The grocery sections of Woolworths and Makro did not participate in ‘Black Friday’ and therefore had only their ‘normal’ deals. Spar did not carry Black Friday deals either on a national level, although individual stores may have had special offers.

Checkers and Pick n Pay on the other hand offered numerous Black Friday deals, with the former claiming to have brought the concept to local shores from the US.

Viccy Baker, founder of Retail Price Watch noted that Checkers stood out for the average savings it offered – in several cases savings were close to those claimed by the brochure’s “up to 50% off”.

“If you bought two packs of Doritos, you were actually getting a 50% discount, and three loaves of Sasko white bread gave you savings of around 35% – only a little less than the 37% advertised in the brochure.

“If you bought four two litre cokes they cost R11 each – a price that has not been seen for several years and offering particular happiness to those who fear the looming sugar tax,” Baker said.

Pick n Pay’s savings were a little more ambivalent – the savings on 500g Quality Street were not as great as claimed, with the average price in November and for the year 2016 not being as high as marked, Retail Price Watch said.

Additionally, Pick n Pay offered several seemingly excellent deals where there had been good specials in the preceding weeks (Nescafe Classic 200g had been selling at R59.50 on promotion in some stores) but the price appeared to have risen to an average R70.92 just before the admittedly great special price of R54.

“In the fruit and veg sector, Pick n Pay appeared to have most items on a special, but again savings were not as obvious – a 4kg pack of potatoes was selling for R44.99 – only a 10% saving on the average price over the year and a 5% saving over the price in November,” Baker said.

She noted that two green peppers at R15.99 were  more expensive than the average for the year and only marginally cheaper than the price earlier in November.

Pick n Pay offered a special on Albany white bread of around 37% – ‘excellent value and one of the few areas we found where savings were as solid as those of Checkers’.

The tables below show how the Black Friday prices compared to the average price for November, and how they compared to the average price seen across the whole year so far.

Pick n Pay Black Friday price comparison

Checkers Black Friday price comparison

 

By Viccy Baker, founder of Retail Price Watch, a consumer website dedicated to providing the latest up-to-date information on consumer good prices across South Africa.