02 Mar 2022

The new owner of retail store Payless Supermarket is working on strategy to rekindle its brand and give it a competitive edge.

A local new entrant, Ellis Retail Group owned by Acute Global Limited acquired the supermarket last year, and has vowed to bring the store back to its glory days.  

“Go rekwa kwa payless, is our new tag line, we want to reposition Payless,” said Ellis Retail Group managing director, Mr Elliot Moshoke in an interview recently.

 “We are not fronting for anyone, we are a wholly owned Batswana business,” said Mr Moshoke.

According to Mr Moshoke, acquiring and running Payless Supermarket had not been an easy ride, as they had to shred away the image created by previous owners such as failure to pay suppliers.

He said the retail store which has eight stores and one liquor outlet space, has had a turbulent past, which affected its positioning in the local retail space.

Mr Moshoke said Ellis Retail Group has adopted a turnaround strategy to make Payless a success story.

 “Our local farmers, manufacturers, producers and general dealers should know that in Payless they have a partner,” he said.

Their strategy, he said would be to buy from locals who were often faced with a tough time to access market for their products.

Also, he said retail fellow competitors had a tendency of pinning down local producers down on pricing, which contributed to substandard produce.

“You do not have to pin them down for them to produce quality products,” he said.

Mr Moshoke added that Payless would give its customers fair and competitive prices despite paying its suppliers decently.

Furthermore, he said Ellis Retail Group was keen on restocking its stores to the satisfaction of its customers, despite challenges it had with distributors.

According to him, local distributors were still skeptical to trust Payless owing to the history they have had with the previous owners.

He said prior to their take over, the previous Payless was embroiled with financial difficulties, job losses and non-payments of suppliers.

Though it was then, such has continued to trouble the current owners as they have to dig deep to convince suppliers and distributors that they were credible.

 “It is like we inherited it with its troubles,” he said.

Nonetheless, Mr Moshoke said Ellis Retail Group has managed to retain 200 staff members and ensured that there were no job losses during the transition.

He said although their business was up and running, they were still faced with financial constraints, caused especially by COVID 19.

He hoped that the COVID-19 industry support fund would be a short in the arm for the business.      However, he said they were still looking for financiers.

Their plan, he said was to expand their footprints and open to places like Kanye. 

According to CIPA records Ms Patricia Moshoke , is the  sole director and shareholder, of Accurate  Component making it a locally owned supermarket.  

Payless currently has six stores in Gaborone and one store in Molepolole, Mochudi and Tlokweng respectively. BOPA