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SOUTH AFRICANS LOVE TO SHOP. Urban Studies, which put the number
The country’s malls and big of malls in South Africa in 2014 at 160,
shopping centres have become the seventh highest in the world. Their
major destinations in their own right – combined retail space was 8,5-million
providing everything from foodstuffs to square metres.
high-end luxury goods, clothes, movies,
restaurants, family entertainment and It is a far cry from two decades ago,
even gambling. when, according to Urban Studies, SA
had only 36 malls with a combined retail
It’s a passion that property developers space of 1,9-million square metres.
and retailers have responded to on
a grand scale. “South Africa ranks ?
sixth in the world in terms of shopping South Africa now
centre space per capita,” says Brad has upwards of
Rothenburg, The Foschini Group’s (TFG) 160 developments
Head of Property. “Of Africa’s 2 082
shopping centres, 1 950 are located Given the frenetic pace of mall
in South Africa.” development over the past 20 years
the big question is: has the sector
Not all shopping centres are malls, of become overtraded?
course. “There is no formal definition of
a mall, but it is generally accepted that AREA-SPECIFIC NEEDS
retail space of 30 000m2 to 50 000m2 The answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. “You
qualifies a shopping centre to be have to look at supply on an area-by-area
termed a small regional mall,” Kiriakos basis,” says Investec Asset Management
Anastasiadis, CEO of retail property property analyst Neil Stuart-Findlayson.
developer Acsion, tells the IMM Journal “Pretoria, Klerksdorp and Port Elizabeth
of Strategic Marketing. “A regional are particularly oversupplied.” >>
mall is 50 000m2 to 100 000m2 and a
super-regional mall is over 100 000m2.”

The 30 000m2 minimum for a mall
is supported by property research firm

?

Shoppers attend
a promotion for a
detergent brand at
Maponya shopping

Mall in Soweto

August–September 2016 strategicmarketing 9