Fashion, food and fun — townships are booming
Township 2022 Cx Report sheds light on a vibrant kasi economy where people are hustling and cash is king
The idea that SA’S townships are desperate slums full of unemployed people is a huge misconception, and a burgeoning kasi economy is quietly on the rise.
The 2022 annual Township CX Report carried out by digital agency Rogerwilco, in partnership with consumer intelligence platform Survey54, sheds light on a vibrant, culture-rich market that is thriving — representing hundreds of billions of rand in spending power.
The report paints a picture of informal communities that are an eclectic mix of mansions, shacks, spaza shops, rocking taverns, hawkers, taxis and hot wheels. The consumers generally spend within their communities, use food delivery services such as Delivery Ka Speed and Order Kasi that deliver exclusively from township restaurants. They prefer local brands over global names and their recorded use of online buying platform Takealot is higher than the national average.
Based on surveys carried out on more than 1,400 respondents from townships across the country — mostly Alexandra, Katlehong and Soweto in Gauteng, as well as Khayelitsha, Gugulethu, Langa, Masiphumelele, Delft and Elsies River in the Cape — the report uncovers a predominantly cashbased world that remains largely untapped and misunderstood.
Figures detailed in the report show that while 56% of the respondents said they were unemployed, 56% reported a monthly income of more than R4,000.
“It’s exactly what I have been saying for years,” said writer, entrepreneur and strategist GG Alcock of Kasinomics, a freelance business specialising in the informal mass market. He agrees with the new report, particularly as it “recanted some of last year’s findings, like the belief that spazas will die”.
The township economy, he predicts, is “the next great frontier of Africa and it is undergoing a revolution — a new world of small people doing big things and transforming the continent”.
Alcock says while many township residents say they are unemployed, this does not mean they have no income. There is a booming backroom sector (people renting out rooms on their property), spaza shops are evolving into spazarettes, and stokvels are becoming increasingly sophisticated. And most people have a hustle of some kind. These are among the observations Alcock has made through his township dealings.
“People are ditching retail chains for spazarettes that have evolved from small hole-in-the-wall outlets into mini supermarkets that give customers what they want. They offer credit on mampara week when the month is longer than your money.
They are mostly foreignowned, but they offer branded products and sell items such as nappies and toilet rolls one at a time,” Alcock said.
Hair and nail salons (“because the lipstick factor goes through the roof when people are struggling”), shebeens, street food outlets, bakeries, fruit and vegetable vendors, mechanics and taxi operators are among the mushrooming businesses servicing the needs of township communities.
Among the success stories he has encountered is that of Mbali and Isaac Khubeka, who started their food business with R700 and now run three “Chicken Dust” stands and a kota shop. They buy more than 1,000 chickens and 700kg of potatoes a week.
Moipone Mahlakwane started a small vetkoek business with her mother after they moved to Joburg from Limpopo and needed to make a living. The business grew quickly to a point where, at the age of 24, she sells about 6,000 units per day at R1 each and employs four helpers.
Entrepreneur Rhulani Shibambo, who started out working in his parents’ kota shop, received corporate sponsorship that enabled him to train at the international hotel school. Armed with new knowledge, he reinvented the family business as Kota King — now a professionally branded chain with four outlets, big visual menus and a growing clientele.
“Somehow SA has shaped a township dialogue around some sob stories that wrongly represent the majority. That’s the real tragedy. You cannot take tales of hardship and extrapolate it on to most of the population.
“It’s depressed doomsday scrolling, mostly by well-off whites. The fact is that townships are places of aspiration and pride. It’s a big and positive story,” said Alcock.