Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/129491 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2015/114
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
Over the past two decades, southern African countries have experienced rapid growth in the number and spread of supermarkets. Several factors have been attributed to this growth, including increasing urbanization, increased per capita income, the rise of the middle class, economies of scale and scope, and transport economies. The format and location of supermarkets have also evolved over the years, moving away from serving the traditional high-end affluent consumers in urban areas to successfully penetrating new markets in low-income rural communities, including through more efficient procurement and distribution systems. This spread into rural areas and the rapid proliferation of supermarkets generally has given rise to some important consequences for competitive rivalry between grocery retail outlets, as well as for local suppliers who want to participate in supermarket value chains in the southern African region.
Subjects: 
supermarkets
southern Africa
regional development
strategy
suppliers
capabilities
JEL: 
L1
L2
L22
O1
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9256-003-4
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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