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AboutPG van der Westhuizen
Pieter (PG) van der Westhuizen is a South African retail executive with more than three decades of store operations, and the founder of SocialBrand, the practice of Social Brands Investments (Pty) Ltd. He has run floors, departments, stores and turnarounds. He now does the same work for independent owners, with an analytics capability he built himself.
Three decades on the floor
Where the discipline started
Store operations from the ground up, and the early data work: database development and availability rules, holding in-store availability at 98%. The lesson carried ever since is the same one the practice sells today. Availability is measured, never assumed.
The supplier side
The view from the other end of the supply chain. How national brands plan, how DCs behave and what a store looks like to the people who fill it.
Hard retail, big format
Building-material retail across formats. Store revamps, store openings and high-turnover stores rebuilt, then turnaround strategies across multiple business units at consortium level.
The dark store chapter
PG ran the Checkers Sixty60 dark store pilot in Cape Town, the store the model was proven in before scaling nationally. His attested record: the highest-turnover Sixty60 store on the continent at the time, north of 1,000 deliveries picked per day at about 98% fulfilled and delivered within the hour. He also built Sixty60 in-store from zero to 25 to 30% participation, growing 50% in its first year. The model and systems were the group’s. The result was his: three decades of floor knowledge and his own analytics discipline, applied hour by hour, in arguably the fastest grocery delivery service on the planet.
The practice
Social Brands Investments (Pty) Ltd was registered in 2024, co-founded with Lizeka Mgodeli. The practice serves independent retail owners from Cape Town and North West: turnaround, operations and training, and the analytics and intelligent ordering work most operators have never had access to. The current mandate is a live multi-store turnaround, from losses back to sustainable profit, with the group’s ordering rebuilt on demonstrated demand.
Career results
These figures are PG’s career record, achieved in management roles across three decades of South African retail. They are stated as exactly that. SocialBrand publishes no client statistics without the client’s consent, and it never invents any.
Shrinkage as a share of turnover, held over four years at a Checkers branch
Stock turn improvement
Staff turnover reduction
Turnover growth year on year
Lizeka Mgodeli
Lizeka Mgodeli is co-founder and director of Social Brands Investments. She runs the client operations side of the practice: onboarding, scheduling, follow-up, accounts and compliance. On engagements she leads operational training and skills development for client teams, implementing procedures, policies and best practice with supervisors and floor-level staff, the people who decide daily whether a standard holds.
How we work
- Every number we publish is true, attributed and approved. The old marketing habit of invented testimonials is the exact disease we cure in stores. We do not carry it ourselves.
- Client identities stay private. Methods are published as thinking, never as formulas.
- Done means it works on your phone, in your store, in real use.
Talk to Pieter
One conversation about your store costs nothing. Bring your numbers, or bring your doubts about them.