About Us

History and Experience

The company was established in 1978, and while there have been some name and ownership changes over the years, the scope of work and key philosophy remains the same. Our credo has always been DPA – Dependable, Professional & Accurate. In a career spanning over 40 years it is not surprising that we have covered a fair amount of ground.  This includes most of the national retail chains, banks, insurance companies, pension funds and major developers.

Our major work has been with retailers, particularly Woolworths, Game and Makro (now part of Walmart) and the Shoprite group (Shoprite, Checkers & OK Foods ) for whom we have done extensive strategic, consumer and store location research over a long period of time.

We have done extensive work for retailers, shopping center developers and financial institutions across Africa, as well as some projects in India, Dubai and New Zealand.

Other Development Research Work

has included a lot of smaller businesses, franchisees, general market research covering a broad range including:

  • Conference centres, casino’s, hotels, restaurants, gyms

  • Retirement villages, housing estates, industrial estates

  • Offices, flats, medical suites, a school

  • An Aquarium, a game farm, an observatory, several theme parks

  • National opinion polling, tourism studies, telecoms

  • Ratepayer Surveys, new product perceptions, usage & awareness studies.

  • Retail tracking studies, mystery shopping, comparative pricing

  • Income & expenditure patterns, housing preferences, key issue resolution

Numbers Speak

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Whitey Basson

ex CEO of Shoprite Checkers

"Douglas Parker Associates has worked closely with Shoprite’s management team for some 30 + years and played an important role, particularly regarding new store development."

Derick van der Merwe

ex CEO V&A Waterfront

"DPA did the original market evaluation for the V&A waterfront, which proved remarkably accurate, and for some ten years thereafter conducted regular consumer research to track shoppers profiles, perceptions and the centre’s performance in terms of tenant mix, marketing, parking, security and housekeeping. This information was a valuable input for management. I have placed an extremely high premium on their research on many critical decisions over a long period of time."

Mark J Lamberti

ex CEO Massmart

“Starting with 6 Makro stores in 1988, Massmart grew to be a 238 store group of retail and wholesale outlets by 2007.  Doug Parker and Associates were retained throughout this period to provide data and analysis on market sizes and appropriate store locations and sizes, pursuant to sustainable growth and viable profitability both in the development of over 100 new stores and acquisition of 15 companies.  A significant feature of Doug Parker’s expertise was the ability to forecast market trends, many of which proved to be accurate over two decades."

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