The report which will be launched at the 2016 South African Council of Shopping Centres Research Conference, sponsored by Broll Property Group, compares shopping habits of consumers in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.

“These findings highlight the importance of the retail environment, merchandising mix and convenience factors. Shop variety and convenience ranked high on the important pull factors that would make them visit a mall,” says Elaine Wilson, Divisional Director for Research, Broll Property Group.

Kenyans regard shopping as a good family outing and it is important for these shoppers that stores have the brands they want to buy. What draws consumers to shopping centres are clean and neat stores, well stocked shops, safety and security and a variety of products, according to the report. 

Furthermore, 92% of those surveyed said the hours were not enough and would ideally like malls to trade from 6am to midnight and 26% visited shopping centres between one and five times a week.

Cash is the most preferred payment method in all three countries with Kenya recording 73%, the highest percentage of shoppers using cash, 8% use credit cards and 9% use debit/cheque cards.

“Cash and mobile payments – M-Pesa are the main methods of payments while credit sales remain low, but as the credit industry develops further, this is likely to increase,” says Robert Broll, Lease Consultant for Retail Leasing & Retail Projects and Developments at Broll Property Group.

However, Broll notes that while retailers might be able to increase sales volumes with credit sales, this exposes them to the risk of bad debt and customers defaulting on payments. So for now, in a relatively young retail market, cash sales remain king.

He says Kenya has a high number of malls and as a result, local shoppers have a habit and culture of visiting malls as these are seen as a place to meet, eat, shop and socialise.

“We find that a balanced mix of different food offerings (take-away and sit down) as well as family entertainment such as Funscapes, play areas for kids and cinemas help to bring shoppers to the mall, more importantly, it increases their dwell time. “Studies have shown that the longer a customer remains in the mall, the higher the spend per head, which naturally makes our tenants happy,” he adds.