Retail veteran Mickey Radowsky often faces tough boardroom questions about his centre's turnover trend. His answer is invariably the same – don't judge a centre on one Christmas. Or two. A trend will only emerge after three seasons.The Canal Walk general manager therefore only allows himself cautious optimism after a bumper Christmas season. No doubt all eyes are on recently delisted Monex's 'mammoth' in Cape Town, as one financial writer recently dubbed it.
'We did well. If you can match your second to your first Christmas, you're doing well. But the figures should tell the story. We are more or less 25% up on Christmas 2000. Of course we're delighted with it, particularly since we've seen some very strong growth across the board. Why? Because people have come here, browsed, and now they're back and buying.'
And not white goods only, he says of rumours of panic buying due to the rand slide.
'Canal Walk turned over R185 – R190 million in December,' he says, 'just slightly less than a double month. And January is set to break records again. Some tenants report matching last January's turnover – in half a month.'
In Durban, The Pavillion's general manager, Savvas Koutoufides, echoes Radowsky's sentiments: 'I don't believe the increases were due to panic buying of white goods. People have the money, we have the product, so they came and they bought. There's no need for sophisticated explanations.'
Koutoufides has reason to smile. The Pavillion, under pressure from its massive new competitor, Gateway, has had an increase in floorspace, which makes apples-to-apples comparisons to last year difficult. Still, he is very happy with the 2,4 million people who visited and the R227 million turnover in December, compared to R190 million in 2000.
'Bearing in mind the many doom and gloom prophets, we're very happy. There is already a mood around that we're getting to the bottom of the exchange rate plunge.'
Like Radowsky, he believes though that the exchange rate is going to harm some undercapitalised retailers. 'Casualties are inevitable. Some just won't have the capital to see them through these times. So we must be cautious of overoptimism. And of too high rental expactations, and rather match the two.
Roy Lighton, general manager at Cavendish Square in Cape Town, believes an exceptional response from foreign visitors helped retailers here. 'Several retailers reported increases in December sales of more than 100%, and some achieved a 200% improvement,' he says.
The biggest increases were in music, clothing, and jewellery, with several national chains reporting December sales at Cavendish Square that were greater than their national average. The centre attracted 1,3 million people in December.
Publisher: Rode
Source: Rode
Christmas sales and future prospects
Posted On Sunday, 03 February 2002 03:01 Published by eProperty News
Retail veteran Mickey Radowsky often faces tough boardroom questions about his centre's turnover trend. His answer is invariably the same – don't judge a centre on one Christmas. Or two.
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