Grocery and takeaway app delivery fees in South Africa

South Africans are paying between R3 and R70 in delivery fees when using the most popular online on-demand grocery or takeaway services.

Fast-moving consumer goods apps or services allow customers to buy products online and have them delivered within a few minutes or hours rather than the days typical e-commerce orders take.

South Africa’s biggest grocery outlets — Checkers, Pick n Pay, Spar, and Woolworths — offer their own on-demand services, all of which charge a flat R35 delivery fee.

Aside from an option to tip the driver, this will be the only additional cost you incur, because the retailers keep product prices the same whether you buy online or shop in-store.

Pick n Pay, Spar, and Woolworths customers have no free delivery options on their respective Pick n Asap!, Spar2u, or Woolies Dash services.

Checkers offers subscribers on its XtraSavings Plus plan free Sixty60 deliveries for orders with a minimum basket value of R350.

However, benefitting from this perk will require paying a R99 subscription per month.

To be worthwhile, you will have to place orders with a minimum value of R350 at least three times per month to make up the subscription fee.

However, if you are willing to shop in person at Checkers once every month, you could get 10% off your basket up to a discount of R200 per month as an XtraSavings Plus subscriber.

Sixty60 allows you to activate this benefit at a time that suits you, so that you use it for the in-store shopping trip on which you plan to spend the most money.

If you save at least R99 from this benefit, all your Sixty60 deliveries of R350 or more will be completely free.

If you want to order groceries from multiple retailers at the best price, you can use Massmart’s OneCart app.

The service lets you combine items from 15 retailers — including Game, Makro, Clicks, Dis-Chem, Food Lover’s Market, Pick n Pay, and Woolworths — into one order.

If all the products come from stores in the same mall or general location, OneCart’s delivery fee is also R35.

This increases to R70 if the products need to be sourced from two or more malls.

OneCart also offers a price comparison tool for price-conscious consumers, although this is limited to partner stores and does not include Checkers or Spar.

The ups and downs of takeaways on demand

The country’s two major online takeaway delivery platforms — Mr D Food and Uber Eats — charge substantially lower delivery fees than the grocery outlets.

Mr D Food’s delivery fee is a flat R15 per order, while Uber Eats charges between R3 and R15, depending on the distance between the user’s delivery address and the restaurant or food outlet.

However, the platforms charge restaurants other fees to make up the loss they take on the delivery charge.

Restaurants are forced to increase prices on these platforms because Uber Eats and Mr D Food take a commission off every sale.

In the case of Uber Eats, this is typically 30%, although the exact fee might vary depending on agreements with the restaurants.

While the fees are a pain for users and restaurants, the companies regard the commissions as necessary for their platforms to be financially sustainable.

Uber Eats also levies a separate service charge over and above its delivery fees and higher item prices.

Uber tells drivers that the service fee is the amount left over from the customer price after the driver’s earnings, third-party fees, taxes, and operational expenses are taken into account.

There is no way for users to determine what precisely their service fee consists of, although it does increase based on the total value of the products in the basket.

Uber does show this amount before checkout, so it is not hidden from users.

Uber Eats users can also get their delivery fee waived and service fees lowered by taking up an Uber One subscription for R50 per month.

The table below compares the delivery fees of South Africa’s on-demand grocery and takeaway services.