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Johannesburg - A rainbow nation of shoppers poured through
the racks of fashion giant Zara's brand new store, its first in South Africa,
where the Spanish chain hopes to tap an increasingly diverse middle class.
With deliveries from Spain twice a week, the low-price
retailer opened the store in November in Johannesburg's posh Sandton City shopping mall, where officials are already smiling over the
response.
"This is a country with a very significant potential
for us," said Victor Herrero, a representative of the parent company
Inditex, the world's biggest fashion retailer. "There are 50 million
people, and a middle class that's growing."
"There are many South Africans who travel, and who
already know the brand. They have been to our stores in Europe or the United
States," he told AFP.
Zara's entry to the South African market follows the huge US
chain Walmart's R16.5bn takeover of Massmart Holdings [JSE:MSM], a South
African retailer with nine wholesale and retail chains with 288 stores in 14
African countries.
Both are counting on the growing middle class, as more and
more black South Africans overcome apartheid-era economic barriers and join the
consumer culture.
On the continent overall, a third of the population can now
be considered middle class due in part to firm economic growth, more jobs and a
developing private sector over the last two decades, according to the African
Development Bank (AfDB).
These 313 million Africans, living above the poverty line
but not among the wealthy, are considered a key factor in helping countries
boost base growth more on domestic demand and less on exports, an AfDB report
said.
The more stable African middle class - which spends $4 to
$20 a day - now "is more or less the size of the middle class in India or
China", counting some 120 million people, the report added.
In South Africa, Zara's store illustrates the trend, with a
clientele that is much more diverse than would have been the case a decade ago.
'Soweto shows the future'
"I came here because I know Zara by reputation,"
said Sibongile Mazibuko, an accountant who travelled the 35 kilometres from
Soweto to check out the new racks.
"I am proud they chose to come to South Africa; it
shows that our country is finally becoming a country like the others," she
said.
Mazibuko's life is a South African success story, 17 years
after the end of white minority rule and the barriers that prevented blacks
from participating in the formal economy.
About 39% of South Africans live below the poverty line,
fixed at R419 a month. Overall unemployment is mired at around 25%, but for the
white population it is closer to 6%.
But over the last decade, the government's black economic empowerment programme has helped foster a growing middle class. About 3 to 4 million people - or 10% of the black population - are now considered
middle class.
While the exact estimates vary, experts agree the number is
growing and nearing the size of the total white population of 4.5 million,
meaning South Africa has doubled the size of its consumer class.
That makes a big new market of people who shop in malls, read magazines and rack up debts.
Parts of Soweto are now at the forefront of South African
fashion.
"Soweto shows the future of what all townships will
look like," said Njabulo Ngcobo of the marketing department at the
University of Cape Town, pointing to the new shopping centres and the satellite
dishes that dot the roofs.
"These new state-of-the-art malls in townships have
brought a lot of shops" that were never there before, he said.
"These shifts mean that marketers and business people
have to grasp what is happening in South Africa now," said John Simpson,
director of the marketing department.
Zara has its eye on other South African cities, including
Cape Town and Durban, said Herrero.
"We shouldn't limit ourselves to Johannesburg," he said, but did not mention a township among the store's targets.
