The South African technical goods retail sector continues to feel the effects of the looting and rioting that took place in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal in July, according to a GfK Lighthouse study.
The study, which looked at the impact of the unrest on technical goods sales in South Africa, showed that sales of televisions and fridges declined in the week of 8-15 August 2021.
GfK’s market performance index uses point of sale data to benchmark weekly sales of key technical consumer goods categories following the unrest against average weekly sales in the first half of the year.
According to the index, the overall performance technical goods retail performance in KZN has yet to reach the same levels before the unrest, despite a near-immediate bounce-back after the looting.
In all 12 product categories, KZN accounted for 14.8 percent of the total South African market in the 8-15 August week. However, this is still below the usual contribution. According to GfK, the sales of fridges, routers and televisions are down.
GfK South Africa, Head of Market Insights, Nicolet Pienaar, said: “A month after the looting, the South African technical consumer goods market is still feeling the after-effects. While KZN is seeing encouraging recovery in sales of IT and telecoms products — perhaps due to consumers wanting to keep safe and stay home — we’re seeing countrywide week-on-week declines in fridge, televisions and washing machine sales”.
According to Pienaar, the decline in sales is a direct result of the destruction of key manufacturing facilities as well as the ransacking of inventory from warehouses in KZN.
“We’re expecting that fridge, televisions and washing machines will continue to feel the pinch for most of the year, as manufacturers work to fully restore their supply chains,” Pienaar said.
Looking at some specific categories in the Index for 8-15 August:
Televisions are still 15 index points higher than the average week. However, this represents a week-on-week decline of 11 points, with KZN 21 index points behind the average week.
The week was the third post-looting that fridges saw a week-on-week decline in index points while washing machines declined 21 index points.
Pienaar said: “Our point-of-sale data not only shows that KZN has some way to go before returning to normal trade performance, but that technical goods retailers will feel the lingering effects of the unrest for months to come”.
IOL TECH