Shopping malls spring up across Africa as middle class grows
By Andrew England and Xan Rice By Andrew England and Xan Rice August 6, 2012
LAGOS, Nigeria When Taiwo Animashaun, who works at Tastee Fried Chicken in Lagos, needed a new hot plate, she decided to try the plush Ikeja City Mall, which opened in December, instead of her local Canada Goose Outlet market. Within minutes of entering Shoprite, the South African supermarket that anchors the complex, she had made her purchase.
“It’s a good place to shop,” Animashaun said. “Everything is arranged nicely, and the prices are not bad.”
From Lagos in the west to Nairobi in the east and Lusaka in uk canada goose outlet the south, trendy shopping malls have sprung up across Africa canada goose coats on sale as the continent’s mushrooming cities modernize and its emergent Canada Goose Online middle class swells.
With Canada Goose sale more cash in their pockets, increasing buy canada goose jacket cheap numbers of Africans are looking to shop in modern centers rather than the small, rundown, poorly stocked, often informal stores that have been the norm in Canada Goose online the past. canada goose uk outlet group, to become the first mass retailer to enter the continent with a $2.4billion deal to secure a majority holding in South Africa’s Massmart. And canada goose uk shop it reflects the strong Canada Goose sale growth Africa has enjoyed in recent years, with buy canada goose jacket sub Saharan Africa’s gross domestic Canada Goose Jackets product expanding at an average Canada Goose Coats On Sale annual rate of more than 5 percent throughout canadian goose jacket the economic crisis that has swept across the world since 2008.
“We think of ourselves canada goose store as Wal Mart’s African investment vehicle,” said Grant Pattison, Massmart’s chief executive.
Shoprite, Africa’s biggest retailer, last month announced the opening of its first store in Kinshasa, capital of Congo, a country better known for conflict and crisis than shopping. Shoprite has operations in 17 Canada Goose Parka African countries and about 115 supermarkets outside South Africa.
Woolworths, a Cape Town based retailer, has plans to open 14 stores outside its home market this financial canada goose coats year and to almost double its stores across the continent, excluding South Africa, to 104 in the cheap Canada Goose next two to three years.
John Fraser, who heads Woolworths’ international division, said the expansion canada goose factory sale has been encouraged by the conscious effort African governments are making to diversify their economies away from dependence on resources.
Oil rich countries such as Nigeria, Angola and Ghana are among the markets being targeted. But for all the enthusiasm and potential, the hurdles can be daunting Africa’s 1billion people are spread across 54 diverse countries with different cultures, languages and demographics. There are sizeable bureaucratic and logistical canada goose barriers, and searching for the requisite real estate can be a big stumbling block. Massmart, for example, has been unable to secure the property it needs to break into Angola and Kenya.
Massmart opened its first store outside of South Africa in the mid 1990s in Botswana and has operations in 12 countries. It has two stores in Nigeria deemed https://www.topcanadagoose.ca the golden goose of the retailing sector and hopes to open another four in the country. But it could take years reach its targets, primarily because of issues of finding the right property, Pattison said.
Still, Pattison said that the harder it is to operate, the “more profit opportunity canada goose clearance sale there is,” and Massmart is planning to open food retail outlets across the continent. “People moving from a rural lifestyle to an urban lifestyle need to be serviced,” he said. “We will now transform Massmart into an African company.”
Not everyone is convinced. Ademola Olugunde, a 40 uk canada goose year old electrical engineer who lives in Australia, was shocked by prices at the Ikeja City Mall.
“This canada goose uk black friday place is a make believe that everything is well in Nigeria and is not what people need. Step across the road, and you see the poverty; the reality is that it is really tough out there. Fancy malls are for the [wealthiest] 1 percent.”
But Nigeria’s huge population of 160million Lagos cheap canada goose uk alone has more than 11million means that still adds up to a lot of potential customers eager to embrace the convenience. “I can’t take my baby to shop in the market, with all the traffic, people canada goose black friday sale and noise,” said Zaynab Salami, 32, who works for the National Blood Transfusion Service and canada goose clearance was pushing her trolley with her 10 month old son sitting inside. “But I can here.”.
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