Hanno Labuschagne – My Broadband

South African grocery retailer Shoprite Checkers has started testing a paid subscription service that provides additional Xtra Savings and Sixty60 benefits.

The membership plan — dubbed Xtra Savings Plus — is currently available to certain Sixty60 users as part of a beta to test its viability and functionality.

“We have invited selected customers to pilot the service. It is not open to everyone at this stage,” Checkers explains on its website’s Help Centre.

A MyBroadband staff member was one of the lucky ones to get an invite via the Sixty60 mobile app on Android.

Signing up for Xtra Savings Plus will require paying a “launch offer” monthly fee of R99. Checkers seems to be considering a standard price of R149 per month for the service.

Xtra Savings Plus offers subscribers unlimited free deliveries on Sixty60 orders over R350.

They also benefit from an additional 10% discount on their basket on their first monthly in-store shop, capped at a maximum saving of R200 per month.

That requires spending R100 or more and cannot be used in tandem with other promotions like Black Friday or Xtra Xtra weekend.

The third and final benefit is that subscribers get twice the number of personalised product offers — available online or in-store.

The screenshots below show the Xtra Savings Plus onboarding process on Sixty60’s Android mobile app.

Xtra Savings Plus sign-up process

Those who test out the service but cancel within the first 30 days will be given a refund in the form of in-app credit on Sixty60.

Without the subscription, customers are charged a flat R35 delivery fee per order, excluding the driver’s tip.

To justify the “launch offer” subscription price based on the Sixty60 delivery benefit alone, you must place at least three Sixty60 orders during the month.

Even so, you would only realise an overall saving of R5.

However, the additional 10% in-store saving of up to R200 could justify the subscription if you do one big monthly grocery expedition in person.

How to get into the beta

At the time of publication, the only way to sign up for Xtra Savings Plus is by invitation through the Sixty60 app.

Those who have not yet received an invite to test the service can sign up to the waiting list.

To do so, you must provide your full name, cellphone number, email address, and Xtra Savings card number.

Shoprite has not yet announced a launch date for Xtra Savings Plus.

In the terms and conditions of the service, Shoprite explained it reserved the right to terminate Xtra Savings Plus and “by no means guaranteed” the offering would be made available to all customers in the future.

MyBroadband asked Shoprite for more details about Xtra Savings Plus and we will update this article if we receive feedback.