WATCH: Singing and tears of joy as Makro Cornubia opens for business

Eager shoppers queued around the block as emotions ran high when the big day arrived for the opening of Makro Cornubia on Wednesday morning.

The 22nd Makro store spans over a massive 19 000 square metres and employs just over 300 permanent staff members largely chosen from surrounding areas who were thrilled to see the store open:

Makro SA Marketing and E-commerce  director Andrew Stein said they have carefully planned the store which cost over R300 million excluding inventory.

“Our aim for this store is to empower the community by creating employment opportunities while offering our shoppers a fantastic experience with state-of-the-art features such as life-size interactive shopping screens, a tech bench to service all your high-tech needs, a Vodacom shop in store and an online hub,” said Stein.

“Our online drive through is a first in KZN and allows our online shoppers to collect their purchases for free at their own convenience.”

Makro SA CEO Doug Jones said they have worked hard at making the store as environmentally friendly as possible.

“We have more than 2000 solar panels which will generate nearly 80 percent of the store’s demands.

“Looking up, you will see more than 300 skylights so that there is no need for additional lighting on a clear, sunny day.

“Furthermore, we will harvest the condensate from the fridges to water the garden and flush the toilets,” said Jones.

Watch as Zinhle Nthombenhle from KwaMashu E-section was the first shopper to enter the store after waiting outside the shop since the night before the opening: