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The Kenyan grocer story is more about the resilience and competitiveness of SME retailers than it is about mismanagement of big corporates, but nobody writes it that way. https://twitter.com/standardkenya/status/1345369254896418816
These grocers (except for Naivas who did it well) tried to break into the markets below the top-5% earners and got beat up by the macro-head winds...
When shoppers are only really buying <100 products a month, pretty hard to compete with a retailer with limited overheads, who’s their customers friend (credit source), and better distribution has meant bulk buying fmcg doesn’t help big grocers price like it once did...
The case for box grocers is product diversification/selection... which is really a luxury, so you hit a wall there. Throw in some economic stress and that floor is pretty high.
Meanwhile, while it’s a pain for SME retailers, they could quickly cut their stock holds, don’t have much in the way of HR costs, and have different land situations... all things it takes a box retailer years to change. Basically the SMEs can move with the consumers.
Then there’s just the constants: most people don’t have cars to put groceries in the boot of, don’t have more than a weeks of cash, and don’t have things like fridges - so shopping local is just much easier.
Anyway, just some thoughts... it’s not that retail has been overbuilt, it’s the wrong kind of retail has been overbuilt. Build sidewalks/storefronts... not malls.
