Joburg stores hard hit by load shedding
JOHANNESBURG – Load shedding affects businesses in a major way.
“It kind of sucks because customers walk in and it’s dark, so it’s uncomfortable.” said Debut store’s Sibangani Ncube.
“Some people want to use the card machine and they can’t, because maybe the battery is low. Sometimes we even have to close early. We can’t use a generator because the store is small and it’ll be too loud.”
Debut store is a relatively new clothing store, opened by DJ’s Kent and Euphonik, and the store operators are experiencing problems with sales during times of load shedding.
Nick Dolomba who works at The Heritage in Braamfontein said, “We haven’t really been affected by it except for one day. This past Saturday we had to close for the whole day. Other than that there’s no complaints.”
Most of the smaller stores in Braamfontein don’t have generators and can’t afford to buy one, so they are forced to close on the days of power outages which costs them sales.
