The blackout that left most of Walmer in darkness for close on a week has been devastating to businesses in the area, with millions of rands in revenue being lost.
Leonie Scheepers, property manager of the Walmer Park Shopping Centre - whose power was restored shortly after 4pm on Wednesday - said the centre had lost about R15-million in turnover, excluding stock loss, due to the extended blackout, and saw a marked decrease in foot traffic.
“We do not have this week‘s figures yet, but for the week from April 14 to 20, our foot-fall was down by 46% compared with last year.”
The centre management was also worried that the blackout would have long- term repercussions, as many customers who had been inconvenienced and unable to shop at the centre would now continue to shop at other centres.
“Once a customer‘s shopping habits have been altered, it is very difficult to win them back, but we will only be able to gauge the impact in this regard in a month or so.”
Scheepers pointed out that while some of the larger tenants, such as Pick n Pay, Woolworths and Edgars, had been able to operate as they had generators, they had also suffered major losses.
“Hundreds of thousands of rands' worth of stock had to be sold at reduced prices to move it before it expired,” she said.
Rental stay the same, but…
Although tenants had been severely inconvenienced by the blackout, the centre would not be reducing rentals for the month but would embark on a major advertising campaign to lure shoppers back to the centre, she said.
17th Quarter developer Gary McWilliams said only two tenants, KFC and Game, had been operating on generators during the blackout, and the lack of electricity had been disastrous for smaller tenants.
“While some have tried to brave it out and operate using manual record systems, many of them have simply closed shop.”
McWilliams said they were aware of the impact of the extended blackout and would look at tenants on a case-by-case basis in terms of this month‘s rental.
“If they do have problems, and we are expecting the smaller tenants to be hit quite badly by this, then we will look at where we can help,” he said.
Some benefited
Although many smaller businesses in Walmer could not be contacted on Wednesday, their premises still in darkness, those with power said they had benefited.
Walmer Dry Cleaning, in 9th Avenue, was without power for Friday, but was connected to the First Avenue supply on Saturday and has been operating without problems ever since.
A representative said they had seen a marked increase in the number of customers bringing laundry to be washed.
Geraldine Joubert of the Blue Orange coffee shop in Heugh Road, said business picked up slightly with the blackout, but this barely compensated for normal load-shedding losses.
Source: The Herald
Published courtesy of
