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The retail sector generated a total return of 12.7% in 2025, supported by moderating inflation, lower interest rates and stable consumer spending, with township and rural retail outperforming at 17% and 17.8% respectively. Vacancy rates improved to 4.5% and trading density growth tracked inflation at 3.9% year-on-year, while tenant demand for quality retail space remained healthy and gross rent-to-sales ratios held stable at 6.8%, according to the South African Property Owners Association.
AI investment outpaces digital foundations, warns AccentureMore than 80% of South African enterprises increased ICT budgets, with AI investment rising 80% between 2022 and 2025, yet business performance has not kept pace as technology spend outstripped revenue growth by about 115 percentage points. Accenture warns that organisations are deploying AI on legacy infrastructure never designed to support it, with technical debt consuming between 20% and 40% of IT budgets and only 24% of executives actively addressing foundational weaknesses despite 89% acknowledging the constraint.
Agentic commerce forces retailers to become algorithmically visibleRetailers face a structural shift as AI agents increasingly make purchasing decisions on behalf of consumers, requiring businesses to ensure product data, pricing and fulfilment systems are transparent and machine-readable or risk disappearing from consideration entirely. Accenture research shows 85% of consumers abandon purchases owing to friction, while agentic commerce demands operational efficiency and data integrity become central to competitiveness.
Retail Updates
By: Mahir Hamdulay - Equity Research: Head of Financials Research at Absa CIB South African commercial property has now delivered four consecutive years of positive capital growth, a milestone that...
JSE-listed Fortress Real Estate Investments has reaffirmed its distributable earnings forecast of at least R2.15-billion for the financial year ending June 30. This translates into a forecast...
By: Junaid Kleinschmidt – Intelligence lead and Ntsako Baloyi – Data & AI lead for Accenture, South Africa Within the South African business community, cloud adoption has moved well beyond early...
The Dubai Chamber of Commerce recently hosted a series of bilateral business meetings between companies from Dubai and South Africa, in Johannesburg, noting that businesses in both markets see...
The Business Confidence Index (BCI) published by financial services firm RMB and economic research organisation the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) fell by eight points to 39 in the second...
Core enterprise systems have become economic infrastructure across various sectors, including financial services, telecommunications, retail and manufacturing, with enterprise resource planning,...
By: Kgomotso Lebele - Country Managing Director for Accenture, South Africa Consider this: you lead a large retail business. Six months ago, you approved a significant generative AI investment to...
By: Charles Coetzee - Buildings & C&SP Lead for Sub-Saharan Africa at Schneider Electric Large-scale retailers operate with notoriously tight margins while managing some of the most...
By Adheesh Ori – Customer and Growth lead for Consumer Goods & Services, Retail and Automotive at Accenture Song and Rajesh Duvooru – Commercial Account Director for Consumer Goods & Services at...
JSE-listed real estate investment trust (Reit) Dipula Properties has reported a 20% year-on-year increase in distributable earnings to R310-million for the six months ended February 28, supported...
JSE-listed real estate investment trust Redefine Properties reported a 7.4% year-on-year increase in distributable income for the six months ended February 28. This prompted it to increase the...
Global business insolvencies are set to rise by 6% this year, on the back of a 6% rise in 2025, which would result in the fifth consecutive year of growing insolvencies, before plateauing at a high...
By: Adheesh Ori - Consumer Goods & Services, Retail and Automotive lead for Accenture Song, South Africa South Africa’s Consumer Goods and Services sector is entering a defining stretch. Years of...
The National Treasury’s latest payment data shows a worsening late payment crisis across national and provincial government departments, raising concerns about the sustainability of current payment...
JSE-listed Growthpoint Properties is advancing its strategy of reinvesting in high-performing South African retail assets with a R75-million redevelopment of the Edgars premises at Walmer Park...
Amid a structural rental housing backlog of about 3.7-million units in South Africa, financial services provider Sanlam’s Property Impact Fund aims to address this shortfall, particularly targeting...
Following two consecutive quarters of declines, the Rand Merchant Bank (RMB)/Bureau for Economic Research (BER) Business Confidence Index (BCI) rose by five points to 44 in the fourth quarter of...
JSE-listed property group Fairvest has reported a yearly distribution of 142.57c per A share and 48.15c per B share for the financial year ended September 30, surpassing the guidance provided to...
JSE-listed Redefine Properties has delivered a 7.8% year-on-year increase in its distributable income to R3.6-billion for the financial year ended August 31, compared with distributable income of...
“With warehouses, logistics centres and retailers operating at peak capacity to meet festive season demand, short-term rental solutions offer essential flexibility. To stay competitive, equipment...
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