The impact of Denlyn mall on local small businesses in the vicinity of Mamelodi township

Abstract

The gradual extinction of small businesses in the Mamelodi Township brought about by the development of the Denlyn Mall has left a huge void in economic situation of the area, thus forcing the owners of these businesses to live in indefinite credit. The foregoing had thus impacted negatively to the community's social and economic welfare; and also worsened the livelihood of local residents. Despite the importance of the aforesaid plight, the store closures have so far not received the much needed attention it deserves in the marketing literature and retailers; and were left without any guidance on how to assess the impact and magnitude of the lost sales. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the impact of Denlyn Mall on local small businesses Mamelodi Township with the aim of assessing the change in the economic situation of the area. A mixed method approach was used in this study, utilising a sample of 90 respondents during the quantitative phase and 40 interviews conducted during the qualitative phase. For this reason the face-to-face interviews and questionnaires were used as data collection instruments. All in all participants that cut across combined operators of informal businesses, namely spaza shops, house shops, street vendors, hawkers and corner cafés and general dealers and supermarkets were carefully selected through the use of a stratified random sampling formula. The findings suggest that operators of SMMEs made high profits compared with the operators in Denlyn Mall; some of them however, only break even in their business operations. Furthermore, the operators claim that SMMEs can do better with more assistance from government in terms of easy access to registration, training, empowerment programmes and financing options. Results from the study showed that the average age bracket of majority of operators of small businesses is within 18-44 years, who are adversely affected with the problem of unemployment. It can therefore be deduced that small businesses can be used as a tool to alleviate the problem of unemployment. This study further found that the issue of education can really help operators of small businesses to be more organised and productive in their businesses. The study further revealed that majority of the operators of small businesses were not married or were single parents and that their average personal income fell within income bracket of between R1000 and R2999 a month, while the high income earners fell within the bracket of R12 000 and R14 000. Although, results from the study showed that operators of SMMEs make high profits when compared with the operators at Denlyn Mall, some do break-even. However, the operators claim that SMMEs can do better with more assistance from the government in terms of easy access to registration, training/empowerment programmes and financing options.