Johannesburg shops more often but Cape Town shops harder, report reveals

Cape Town shoppers spend more money than Johannesburg shoppers during each shopping spree, despite the latter visiting shops more often, a new report revealed.

The report, published on Monday and conducted by retail software firm Vend, found that independent retailers in Cape Town see 374 average transactions per month, while about 470 swipes occur at Johannesburg stores. Those Cape Town transactions however have a much higher value — R574 on average. This is much higher than Johannesburg’s average of R366.

The report analysed “the data of more than 13 000 independent stores in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa over the last financial year (April 2018 – March 2019), looking at monthly revenues,  gross profit margin, number of transactions processed per month, transaction value, basket size and number of customers,” the company explained.

When compared to other regions, South Africa’s stores also had the lowest monthly revenue for the 2018 financial year, with each making around R187 245 per month in 2018. United States retailers lead the industry with R443 948 per month.

Despite this, South Africa and the US shared the highest number of shoppers, with SA claiming the largest basket size of 2.84 items per shop.

Across the board, liquor stores made the most amount of money, with South African stores cashing in about R506 251 each per month.

South Africa also had the lowest average gross margin, with retailers making a profit of about 46.16% as compared to the USA’s 53.46%.

Feature image: Pexels via Pixabay