The emerging upmarket Chinese Mall

There are a handful of entrepreneurs who are looking to take the Chinese Mall model into new areas. On the corner of Republic Road and Jan Smuts Avenue in Randburg lies China Discount Shopping Centre. Newly painted in red and blue, the building is decorated with Chinese markings.

Unlike the crowded Crown Mines malls, this mall is quiet. The parking lot, built for well over a 1000 cars, is almost completely empty on an average day. Launched in May this year, the mall has more than 120 shops, many of them still bearing “To Let” signs on the windows.

Twenty-six-year-old Angelique Ju, the manager of China Discount Shopping Centre, says this location was attractive because there were no other Chinese developers operating there. “The malls in the Crown Mines are not running. There are too many all grappling with each other. There aren’t enough Chinese people in Johannesburg for that kind of competition so we wanted to be in an area where we sell to everyone,” says Ju.

“The tenants spy on each other. It has reached a point where they have signs stopping one another from entering. Now the tenants are getting smart and they send the people working in their shops to do their spying for them.”

Although they have avoided the competition from similar Chinese nodes, the centre has internal conflicts. Ju says the tenants are very competitive and steal one another’s ideas because of their similar clientele. She has to deal with quarrelling and tenants who accuse each other of spying on one another.

Shop owners claim their competitors visit other stores and pretend to be customers while they suss out the competition. Ju says the tenants who visit other stores then stock the same goods for their own shops. “The tenants spy on each other. It has reached a point where they have signs stopping one another from entering. Now the tenants are getting smart and they send the people working in their shops to do their spying for them,” Ju laughs.

The biggest problem is that many of her tenants have the same suppliers. The local retailers in the shopping centre are more successful because they import from various countries such as Dubai and even when they do import from China they get unique goods, she adds.

One developer who has already started exploring the higher end of the retail market chose the old Rivonia Square on the corner of Rivonia Boulevard and 9th Avenue in Rivonia as a prime spot for his development. Rivonia Oriental City is nestled among the clean streets of one of Johannesburg’s most affluent suburbs. Consumers are welcomed by red flags flying high and elephant statues on each side of the main entrance.

The layout of Rivonia Oriental City is different from those in the Crown Mines area. The wide walkways feel like those in Sandton, but the usual search for mall parking space is not part of the shopping experience. Although the mall is not packed with customers, tenants believe it has potential.

Twenty-seven-year-old Rose Zhang likes the fact that it is different from other Chinese malls she has worked in. Zhang worked at the Oriental Cities in Centurion, Pretoria and Bruma, east of Johannesburg. Even though she has only been working in Rivonia for two months, she says she prefers working there because of the variety in customers and store owners. “There are black shop owners here too which is good because we are mixed. This is South Africa.”

The mall has a Planet Fitness gym, an Ackermans, a Truworths clothing store and a Post Office. Having opened in May 2012, Rivonia’s Oriental City is a baby that has the potential to develop. However, as a look into the crystal ball of Chinese malls in South Africa, the number of unoccupied stores and near empty walkways may reflect a bleak future for the rest who want to move in this direction.