Pick n Pay Namibia has launched an online shopping platform, www.buyonline.com.na, in Windhoek. Th online store will stock 1,300 SKUs, have the same prices as Pick n Pay’s bricks and mortar stores and have a delivery fee of N$40 ($2.80) for central Windhoek and N$80 ($5.60) for outer Windhoek.
Pick n Pay does offer online shopping in South Africa (delivery in selected cities only) and Zimbabwe (click and collect) already. The move means that Pick n Pay, through partner Ohlthaver & List, becomes an online grocery retail pioneer in Namibia: rivals Shoprite, Spar and Woermann Brock do not retail online in Namibia. Buy Online, the Namibian start up Pick n Pay will use, was founded in early 2015 as a standalone service. Following a successful pilot it has been adopted by Ohlthaver & List to become the Pick n Pay online shopping platform in the country.
Trendtype estimates that online grocery retail in Namibia has a potential market value of around $28.5m in 2019. Pick n Pay has one real competitor: Milkman Namibia, another Namibian start up, founded in 2017. Milkman partners with Checkers (Shoprite), offers a similar service and delivers to Windhoek only. Aside that, iShopping, a Namibian online only business claims to allow customers to purchase from any of the major supermarket chains but features 7 SKUs from Pick n Pay and 21 SKUs from Woermann Brock.