THE HIERARCHY & CLASSIFICATION OF
SHOPPING CENTRES IN SOUTH AFRICA 2025

RETAIL – ALWAYS CHANGING AND EVOLVING

South Africa’s population is expected to increase to 65 million people by the end of 2025 and to further increase to approximately 70 million by the end of 2030. By then the country would be 70% urbanised.

Shopping centres will continue playing a very important role to satisfy the needs of consumers and capture their disposable income. The retail sector currently represents more than 12% of the total GDP of South Africa. Despite concerns regarding the oversupply and saturation of the shopping centre industry the growth in new shopping centres will continue mainly because of population growth, growth in the middle and higher end of the market as well as redevelopment of old centres.

The one outstanding aspect that will further stimulate the development of new shopping centres is the fact that almost 33% of centres built before 1994/5 (older than 30 years) have never been revamped or upgraded. This creates opportunities for new centres to be built at good locations in more affluent suburbs.
Online shopping will most probably have a direct impact in slowing down new shopping centre development in future.

The challenge remains to develop a workable omni-channel strategy where online and in-store shopping continue to complement each other.