The need to diversify and differentiate

Keyser believes China Mall was the pioneer of Chinese retail. “When we started, we were the only ones in our area doing this kind of thing [Chinese retail and wholesale] so we did not compete with anyone else. Now, with so many other malls in the area, we need to find a way to be different. They call themselves China Mall but we own the trademark,” she says with a smile.

Pon agrees that one of the challenges for Chinese retail development is differentiation and diversification. He says the market must adjust and develop to keep up with changing trends and increase in competition and adds that some owners of these nodes have already started developing plans.

“Currently some property developers are evolving and realising the need for upmarket malls. As far as I know the owners of Dragon City have purchased a space and are looking into developing the ‘Sandton’ of China Malls.”

“We cannot go to Sandton, for example, and build a mall like this [China Mart] selling goods like this [cheap imports].”

Yeh says in the future China Mart would like to move towards building a mall that could be likened to Cresta or Menlyn Park in Pretoria. He explains that the target market and new business model will be determined by the location.

“Obviously this would take a lot of hard work and planning. Location is very important. We cannot go to Sandton, for example, and build a mall like this [China Mart] selling goods like this [cheap imports]. We will also limit the number of people selling one type of thing. Otherwise people will just start shooting each other,” Yeh says with a raised eyebrow and a smile.

China Mall has already decided to spice things up with a little diversity. Keyser says the goal of the mall is to attract not only local but international business too. The group has decided to introduce a number of well-known chain stores like Pick n Pay and Legit to their malls. This strategy has already been adopted in their Durban mall and Keyser believes it has already increased their customer base.

“What is unique to our group is that we are trying to have a fusion of local Chinese and international clients as our tenants. China Mall has gone this route because South Africa is so diverse. At the moment we have about 60% of our tenants who are Chinese and the other 40% is made up of people from Pakistan, Turkey, Vietnam and of course other South African locals,” she says.