Weekly catalogues and specials in South Africa

Guide to Weekly Catalogues, Specials and Grocery Savings in South Africa

Shopping culture and the weekly publication cycle

Weekly catalogues are part of everyday grocery shopping in South Africa. Instead of walking through a store to find out what is on sale, many shoppers read the catalogue first, build a list around the specials and only then decide where to buy. CatalogueThisWeek collects 27 current catalogues from 97 retailers in South Africa, so one page replaces a dozen separate websites. Start with the main groups of stores: Groceries, Home & Garden, Electronics and Clothing, Footwear, Sport.

Most new catalogues in South Africa start on Monday, and a typical catalogue stays valid for about 21 days. Those figures come from the catalogues that are currently in our index, not from an assumption, and they change whenever retailers change their schedule. Many chains publish the next catalogue a few days before it begins, which gives you time to compare it with the current one. Every catalogue on this site shows its exact start and end date, so check it before you plan a trip.

National and seasonal events shape the promotional calendar as well. Christmas, Easter, the start of the school year and the summer sales usually bring larger or longer catalogues, and many retailers publish a dedicated Black Friday edition in late November. When a retailer releases a special edition, we add it next to its regular catalogue, so you can see both before you decide where to shop.

Leading supermarket chains and the discounter landscape

The grocery market in South Africa combines full-service supermarkets, large hypermarkets and hard discounters. Among the stores with a current catalogue on our site, the busiest are Boxer, Checkers, Pick n Pay, Shoprite and Devland. Each of them has its own hub with the active catalogue, upcoming editions and a short archive, so you can open the retailer you normally use and compare it with the others in a few clicks.

Hard discounters such as Boxer and Shoprite build their offer on a limited range and low everyday prices, so their catalogues often feature non-food specials and seasonal items. Full-service chains such as Checkers and Pick n Pay carry a wider range and use the catalogue to promote fresh food, brands and multi-buy deals. Neither model is always cheaper: compare the same basket across two or three catalogues before you shop, and look at the price per kilogram or litre rather than the headline number.

Many retailers tie part of their weekly specials to a loyalty programme. In South Africa the ones you will meet most often include Xtra Savings (Checkers) and Smart Shopper (Pick n Pay). A price printed in a catalogue can differ from what a card holder pays, so read the small print on each page and check whether a card or app is needed to get the advertised price.

How to get the most out of weekly catalogues

Compare unit prices, not shelf prices. A larger pack with a deep discount is not always the cheaper choice once you divide by weight or volume, and a multi-buy offer only saves money if you would use every item. Write your list first, mark the specials that match it and ignore the rest: impulse purchases are where most of the savings in a catalogue disappear.

Plan around validity dates. A catalogue that ends tomorrow is still useful for a quick top-up shop, but stock-dependent offers are often gone by the last day. If the next edition is already shown, you can wait for it when the product you need is not urgent. Remember that offers apply only within the dates printed on the page and while stocks last.

Use the store pages to follow the retailers you trust: Boxer and Checkers are good places to start, and category hubs such as Clothing, Footwear, Sport and Electronics group similar stores side by side. Our figures update whenever a retailer publishes a new catalogue, and older editions stay available in each store's archive for a short time.