In 2023, South African e-commerce retailers began introducing subscription services offering free deliveries and added benefits, following the global success of models like Amazon Prime.
A year later, our data reveals fascinating insights bringing us to question just how ready South African consumers are to pay for these monthly subscriptions – do they see value and what does this mean for South African retail strategy?
The Evolution of Retail Subscriptions
Membership-based retail shopping went big during the mid-20th century USA, gaining momentum in 1983 with the introduction of Costco and Sam's Club. Today, Costco's $65 annual membership fee generates a massive $4.8 billion in revenue per annum.
Although the total fees made off its 75 million paid members only represent roughly 2% of its total revenue, its real value lies beyond being a revenue source. Its subscription models allow for Costco to:
- Understand changing consumer preferences in near real-time
- Earn more predictable revenue
- Drive enhanced customer loyalty
- Improve inventory management and logistics
With these benefits, it’s no wonder subscription-based membership models have become a big focus for the most prominent in-store and e-commerce retailers.
In 2025, Amazon launched Prime with a $75 annual “membership fee” for unlimited fast shipping. Today, Prime serves over 180 million subscribing members. With an unchanged annual fee, same-day shipping, and an expanding suite of products and services – it's unsurprising that subscribers now generate +- $24.5 billion for the company annually.
This evolution from simple delivery benefits to comprehensive service bundles offers valuable lessons for South African entities seeking revenue and customer loyalty opportunities.
Let’s dive into the South African subscription space…
South Africa's Subscription Landscape
This behavioural shift is already taking hold in South Africa. While still in its early stages, the subscription retail market is showing real momentum. Checkers Xtra Savings Plus, Uber One, and Takealot More are leading the way, offering customers a mix of free delivery, discounts, and exclusive deals. Even beyond these major players, South African retailers are exploring new subscription-driven strategies, with initiatives like Proudly South African and Digital Retail Africa 2025 pushing for local subscription services to compete with international rivals.
South African consumers seem ready for this shift. The country’s mobile commerce dominance presents a unique opportunity — subscription models integrated with mobile platforms could reach more customers than ever before. At the same time, economic pressures are making value-driven convenience more attractive, giving retailers a powerful way to drive long-term loyalty.
Analysis of the Success of Subscriptions in South Africa
Curious to uncover how membership subscriptions have affected consumer purchasing behaviour in South Africa – we turned to Reveal’s own transaction-level data.
We extracted data on the two most established players in the local subscription space: Uber's UberOne (started June 2023) and Checkers' Xtra Savings Plus (started September 2023).
At a glance, each of these subscriptions offers a distinct value proposition:
In summary, UberOne’s monthly R50 fee provides not only free delivery as long as orders are over R100 but also a 5% discount on rides, while Checkers Xtra Savings Plus' exclusive R99 launch, presents their offering with unlimited delivery perks on orders over R350 in addition to additional offers and savings for subscribers.
The Biggest Spenders Opt-in
Our transaction data reflects expected subscription-linked revenue returns – in both cases, Uber One and Xtra Savings Plus sales volumes originating from customers with subscriptions from January to December 2024 increased.
For customers with an Uber One subscription, the value of their Uber Eats spend increased from 38% to 44% of all Uber Eats spend tracked throughout 2024. This represents a 16% relative spending increase over the year – which is notable considering that Uber One customers only make up about 27% of all customers who made an Uber Eats purchase.
This suggests that not only did Uber One members spend at a greater clip throughout 2024 – each Uber One member, on average in the aggregate, spent 70% more than non-member customers.
For Checkers, compelling insight emerged – our data shows that the revenue from Xtra Saving Plus customers grew to represent 33% of all revenue earned by Checkers. This represents a 50% relative increase in revenue contribution by Xtra Savings Plus members throughout 2024. This is massive considering our data shows that Xtra Savings Plus members only account for about 13% of all customers who shopped at Checkers in 2024. It should be noted the figures quoted above relate to the Checkers brand exclusively and not to the Shoprite Group as a whole.
One might assume that customers who have a strong preference for online purchases and home delivery would be the most likely to adopt a subscription-based Xtra Savings Plus membership. However, data reveals an uptick in spending in-store for Xtra Savings Plus members as well. This might have to do with the in-store benefit offered on Xtra Savings Plus or simply that when a customer is already engaged with a brand through a subscription, they become more likely to default to that retailer across all channels.
Subscription Perks: How Free Delivery Shapes Shopping Habits
South African consumers are highly price-conscious, which makes free delivery a powerful tool for influencing shopping behaviour. The appeal of spending more to save more is clear — but does free delivery actually drive more transactions, or does it simply shift how people shop?
For both Xtra Savings Plus and Uber One, free delivery is unlocked once a minimum spend is reached. The assumption might be that this leads to fewer but larger transactions, as customers try to meet the spending threshold. However, our data shows something different — subscribers aren’t just consolidating purchases to qualify for free delivery; they are shopping more frequently and spending more overall.
Checkers Xtra Savings Plus: More Orders, More Revenue
The Sixty60 Xtra Savings Plus users make, on average, 7.2 transactions per month, compared to 4.4 for non-members. With a minimum spend requirement of R350 per order for free delivery, one might expect customers to consolidate purchases into fewer, higher-value transactions. Yet, our data shows that subscribers continue to place multiple smaller orders, suggesting that free delivery isn’t just saving them money — it’s fundamentally changing how often they shop.
The takeaway? Non-subscribers are paying more for deliveries than they would if they subscribed, losing out on potential savings. At just R99 per month, Xtra Savings Plus offers undeniable value — but this is only an introductory price. With the standard price set to increase to R149 per month, the pricing strategy will likely play a key role in future adoption.
Beyond just savings, Checkers also benefits from more predictable customer behaviour, allowing for better delivery route planning and driver allocation — a win-win for both retailers and customers. As membership numbers grow, so does operational efficiency, reinforcing the long-term viability of the model.
But there’s more to it than just planning deliveries more effectively. Checkers’ Sixty60 delivery drivers earn fixed daily wages, meaning the cost to the company remains the same regardless of how many deliveries each driver completes. By increasing the number of deliveries per driver through a subscription model, Checkers lowers its per-delivery cost, making the overall system more efficient and financially sustainable. This means that as Xtra Savings Plus membership grows, Checkers isn’t just generating more revenue — it’s making its logistics more cost-effective, ensuring long-term profitability.
The growth in spending among Xtra Savings Plus members is driven by two key factors: more customers signing up for the subscription and existing subscribers shopping more frequently. As the subscriber base expands, Checkers benefits from both predictable revenue and increased transaction volume per member — a combination that reinforces long-term customer retention.
Uber One : A Substantial Increase in Order Volumes
Uber One members place an average of 12 orders per month, compared to 4.5 for non-members — that’s nearly three times as many transactions. With an average order value of just under R140, this suggests that Uber One members are frequent users of the platform for small, convenience-based purchases.
*delivery fees vary based on distance, time of day and other factors.
For high-frequency users, the R50 subscription cost easily pays for itself, saving members around R130 per month in delivery fees alone. But there’s more to this than just free delivery.
Uber’s dynamic pricing and personalised promotions help balance the financial impact of offering free deliveries. By encouraging frequent, repeat purchases, Uber can offset the lower margins per transaction with an overall increase in customer spending.
Additionally, members who no longer have to factor in delivery fees may be less price-sensitive and increasing overall spend.
This makes them more likely to spend on higher-margin items, bundles, or last-minute add-ons — more loyalty and more room to play with margins.
Uber vs Checkers Models
However, Uber Eats faces a different challenge than Checkers. Unlike Checkers, which pays delivery drivers a fixed daily wage, Uber pays its drivers per trip. This means that while more transactions increase revenue, they also raise operating costs. To ensure that subscription-based free deliveries don’t eat into margins, Uber offsets these costs in two key ways:
- Higher total spend per subscriber – Uber One members order nearly three times as often as non-members, meaning their overall contribution to revenue far exceeds that of occasional users.
- Smart pricing and upselling – Uber leverages dynamic pricing, order surcharges, and promotions on high-margin items to extract additional value from frequent users.
In short, Uber’s model ensures that increased transaction volume isn’t just covering delivery costs — it’s actively driving higher overall revenue per customer.
Subscriptions: It’s a win-win
What makes these subscriptions so effective isn’t just the cost savings — it’s how they remove friction from purchasing decisions. Without a subscription, customers tend to delay purchases or consolidate them into fewer, larger orders. But when free delivery is already covered, every small craving, forgotten item, or impulse purchase turns into an order — driving up both order frequency and total spend.
For retailers, the benefits are just as compelling. Checkers gains better cost efficiencies through optimised delivery logistics, while Uber Eats can leverage member loyalty to drive sustained revenue growth. The key challenge moving forward will be keeping members engaged — ensuring that the value remains high enough to prevent cancellations and combat subscription fatigue.
If the early adoption trends are anything to go by, subscription-based retail is here to stay — and those who refine their strategies now will dominate the market in years to come.
Final Thoughts: The Future of Subscription-Driven Retail in South Africa
- Subscription models aren’t just a passing trend—they’ve reshaped retail abroad and are now gaining traction in South Africa. In markets like the US, they’ve helped retailers build predictable revenue and deeper customer loyalty, adapting to the rise of e-commerce. Now, with South African consumers actively subscribing and spending more, we’re seeing similar momentum locally.
- It’s still early days. E-commerce subscriptions only launched in South Africa in 2023, and while 33% of Checkers’ tracked spend and 44% of Uber’s now come from subscribers, there’s plenty of room for evolution. Amazon Prime started as a simple free delivery service before expanding into a must-have ecosystem of perks. Could Checkers, Takealot, or new players develop a South African equivalent? The opportunity is there.
- Data could be the real game-changer. Unlike occasional shoppers, subscribers generate a steady flow of transactional data, helping retailers fine-tune inventory, pricing, and promotions. Checkers can predict shopping habits and time promotions more effectively, while Uber Eats uses order history to push hyper-personalized offers. The result? Higher spend, better margins, and stronger engagement.
- The race for subscription bundling is heating up. While we haven’t analyzed Takealot More in detail, its approach—combining free deliveries from Takealot, MrD, and PnP Asap!—positions it as a one-stop alternative to standalone subscriptions. Whether this model wins customers or leads to subscription fatigue will depend on the balance between value and pricing.
- Finally, timing is key. In the early days of South African e-commerce, free delivery was a hook to attract customers. Now, as digital shopping becomes the norm, retailers have the opportunity to monetize convenience, shifting expectations once again.
At first, paying for free delivery may have seemed counterintuitive. But the data paints a clear picture: South Africans aren’t just willing to pay — they’re spending more and shopping more frequently because of it. For retailers, this presents a massive opportunity — but one that requires a delicate balancing act. The challenge isn’t just about getting customers to subscribe; it’s about keeping them engaged, ensuring long-term value, and fine-tuning the model for sustained profitability.
With more players entering the space, the role of data and insights will be critical. Subscription success isn’t just about offering free delivery — it’s about creating lasting customer habits. The retailers who understand and refine this model will win customer loyalty and dominate South African retail in the years to come.
One thing is for sure, having a in depth understanding of customer behaviour is pivotal in launching a successful subscription service.
