Indians rule retail roost
THERE’s a rising black middle class with disposable income in South Africa, but if you want to see the might and genius of Indian buying power, it was evident at the opening of the new Cornubia Mall, the opening of a new shop at the Chatsworth Centre and, more recently, the Black Friday shopping festival, where unprecedented shopping sprees resonated through the aisles of feverish stores.
You cannot beat an Indian housewife when it comes to bargain-hunting as they are usually endowed with the task of keeping the homefires burning and keeping the grocery cupboards topped up.
Limiting quantities per customer is not a deterrent but rather a challenge to them. They will either turn up with the entire family or do several runs to the car park and back.
Fast moving consumer goods and daily comestibles like long life milk, sugar, rice and oil, if priced right, will literally fly off the shelves.
Parsimonious trends of stockpiling and hoarding supplies for a “rainy day” have been around for ages.
Our earlier generations have been stashing cash in rusty sweet tins and the yields when filled to the brim have been like nectar.
They gave a new dimension to the term “keeping money under the mattress”.
While “stokvel” savings clubs have been invented by blacks, Indians devised a savings scheme called “lottery”, which has a set amount of people pooling equal amounts each month to a pre-determined recipient. It is a guaranteed way of savings and is still popular today.
There is no obsequiousness when it comes to “sale day” and a waltz between the aisles and the melodious cackle of ringing tills.
It may sound preposterous but it is the truth. There is something innately intriguing and hypnotic as the inner compulsion to shop becomes irresistible.
Indian
traders
too pursue profit more tenaciously than ever. They are shrewd, resourceful and ingenious entrepreneurs with their feet firmly on the ground and their eyes fixed on the balance sheet. We are a so generous people, skilled in the art of negotiation and born to seek leverage out of anything and everything.
Free community tabloids are packed with more advertising material than news as clever and innovative marketers target their market segments with desired penetration.
Retailers too are jostling for prime retail space in township malls. One such group has been fighting a legal battle to obtain a property in Chatsworth.
Store location and consumer demographics are important ingredients in a marketing mix and no marketer will overlook the breath-taking excesses of the Indian shopper.