Quick cuppa {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? Scientists have found a way to make espresso without any heat: using sound waves, they can make coffee dissolve perfectly in cold water, saving 75% of coffee production energy costs. Until the customer asks, "Why is this cold?" and insists you heat it, we presume. 🤷‍♀️

In Today's Open Letter

Shoprite has opened its 50th Uniq store, SA's only fully cashless, no-cashier, self-checkout fashion retail chain – and we think they're onto something…

There are always two sides to in-person shopping: the joy of picking your items VS the misery of the checkout line – 14 thousand tills, only two cashiers, both beyond depressing to converse with (except Woolworths, they've got cashier joie de vivre down pat).

It's kinda why we want self-service checkout: the UK's Tesco's had it since 2003, the US's Amazon Go and Fresh stores (now closed, though) and everyone from Pick n Pay and Checkers to KFC and McDonald’s piloting it locally. We also think it's part of SA's grocery delivery industry success.

Shoprite's UNIQ Clothing by Checkers stores stand out among all of these, though, because it's:

And it creates a specific experience: The store isn't staffless; there are people to help you with the fun buying part. It just gives the ability to grab the clothes you want and pay faster and more efficiently. You know, just the fun stuff.

But why? New tech, better data and merchandising decisions – we can't be 100% sure (Shoprite doesn't report on Uniq separately), but it has the same "family" category offering as Pick n Pay Clothing (437 locations) and every Woolworths (though their sales are slowing), not to mention Shein, Temu and Bash (who's making a killing). So there must be a method to the madness, and it might be about operating costs…

An operating-cost play

Now look at what Uniq does: a faster/more efficient checkout experience at lower operating costs – not the full 40%, there are still some staff in-store; they are just not the blocker anymore. They are free to help and facilitate fashion choices (the real reason you're there).

Lower operating costs buy you options: you can spend more on marketing or discount more aggressively; you can even afford to roll out more stores, faster than anyone else: Uniq went from 1 store in March 2023 to 43 by 28 June 2026 (meaning, to get to 50, they added 7 in the last 3 months alone). In fact, they had a ~43% YoY growth rate, outstripping even Pepkor's Choice Clothing (~30%).

In a time when the likes of TFG are closing down stores, nogal.

And don't discount the value of the high-tech RFID tags and the fact that you can access clearance items with your Checkers Xtra Savings (adding even more data to your profile); they must have some sweet customer preference data already – and we have no doubt that feeds into how they position Sixty60 to you, too.

It's kind of where in-store and online commerce meet, no?

We're watching this space…

An SA agency was doing everything right on paper: revenue up 50% year on year, profitable and team growing. The problem was they couldn’t clearly see what should come next: more hires, more clients? What is their strategic next move?

The problem was that every fractional CFO they asked just handed them the same docs: a P&L, a balance sheet, a note on which way the margin moved. But none of that told them where they should strategically move next.

What they really needed was the economic unit underneath the business. So Finvoke put their time tracking, their Xero invoices and costs, and their payroll into one dataset, Clarity, and calculated the real cost per hour of every person from actual payroll, not an estimate.

Two things surfaced immediately:

Closing those gaps added 5% to the top line, straight through to net profit.

Grow by following where people move. Shoprite opened 262 new supermarkets last year. Its CEO's reason: migration keeps creating new areas nobody serves yet, leading to 89 straight months of market share gains. See the call.

Win by selling a second brand from the same kitchen. Spur franchisees run delivery-only brands like Pizza Pug out of their existing restaurants, with no new rent or staff. Nearly 90% of Panarottis owners do it; Spur's fastest grower: profit up 20% this year. See how.

Save time by updating your details in the app. Capitec Business now lets you change your contact details and residential address on the app or online banking. No forms, no calls, no branch visit. Update yours.

⛽ The Fuel Levy Might Shrink. Government is weighing cutting the R2.27-a-litre Road Accident Fund levy and funding the RAF partly through third-party insurance. If you run vehicles, what replaces it matters more than the cut.

🔏 ChatGPT Gets Watermarked Too. OpenAI will add an invisible watermark to ChatGPT and Codex text in the EU, two months after Claude did it worldwide. SA users won't get it by default, but why OpenAI waited is the real lesson.

🛍️ Buy Straight From The Feed. TikTok just launched an AI shopping assistant with one-click checkout inside the For You feed. Once again, South Africans can buy, but we cannot sell or make money on the platform. Seriously, how have we not banned this trash yet?

🥾 Safety Sorted. Hospitality, construction, retail, manufacturing, logistics and agriculture teams need workwear that lasts. Jonsson Workwear supplies safety boots, PPE and branded uniforms built for demanding environments, with 70 years of experience kitting out SA teams.*

🛒 Checkout Before Black Friday. Black Friday is 27 November. Paystack Onsite is free to install, live on the Shopify App Store, and takes minutes to switch on. Stop sending your shoppers to a stranger's page to pay. Sort it out before the traffic arrives.*

* From our partners. Find all the best service providers for your business in our Founder Stack.

We featured SEQFlo's marketplace payments safety and asked how you buy from strangers online. And most here say it's the cop shop or nothing…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🚔 Meet at the cop shop or nothing (50%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😬 Paid on a screenshot once, never again (14%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🕵️ I check their Facebook back to 2014 (36%)

Capitec serves around 26 million clients and uses AI from fraud detection to client care. So we asked its head of data science how the bank decides between rules, machine learning and generative AI, and why the answer is sometimes no AI at all.

And it turns out, there are 5 steps to decide which kind of AI to use for any job in your business.

Aged 18 to 26 with a business or big idea? Nedbank's YouthX Awards back young South Africans with cash prizes, mentorship and financial training. Enter before 9 Oct.

Two years trading with repeat customers? The SAB Foundation's Tholoana Enterprise Programme backs proven, 51%+ black-owned SA businesses. Apply before 13 Oct.

Need more than just advice? The Founder Collab bundles R40k+ in tools, cloud credits, legal sessions and a curated founder community into one membership for SA tech builders. Join now.

Want free AI skills training? Google Hustle Academy 2026 offers one-day bootcamps and 60-min webinars for SA entrepreneurs and SME owners. Register for free.

Want to promote your event/programme here? Let us know.

Founder Story: Building Yaga, 13 Oct, CPT: How an Estonian preloved fashion marketplace found its biggest market in SA. Get tickets.

Startup Stories: Biomine, 14 Oct, CPT: Taking microbiome testing beyond the gut into skin, oral and infant health. Get tickets.

SA to the USA, 14 Oct, online: Visas, costs, healthcare and what the move really takes. Register free.

Powered by Radi. Want your business event in front of 36,000 The Open Letter readers? Host it on Radi, and it lands here.

🏎️ Next Level: Watch Max Verstappen race against 100 influencers in go-karts. It goes about how you'd expect.

🎧 Wow Site: Hidden Track Splitter lets you pass an awesome song on to a random stranger, and then they pass you back some unlistenable thing you've heard before.