According to Chris Gilmour, investment analyst at Gilmour Research, Walmart will have to wrestle away market share from market-leading incumbents like Shoprite and Pick n Pay that have a long history with South African consumers and understand their shopping habits well.
Walmart's purported strategy to offer a "wide range of merchandise, including fresh groceries, household essentials, apparel and technology" may not work particularly well locally, either.
"To have any meaningful impact, Walmart would need to sustainably undercut Shoprite and all other South African retailers in terms of price. Sure, Walmart has huge buying power, but is it necessarily that different to Shoprite? I'm not convinced. The experience with Game especially has shown that South African shoppers don't really like stores that sell TV sets right beside pumpkins and gem squash. They want focused retailers," said Gilmour.