Good and bad news for South African malls

More Black Friday shoppers visited malls in 2024 than during the sales event in 2023, with some of the country’s largest malls seeing the highest proportionate increases.

However, the amount of time people spent inside shopping centres during the annual shopping event declined.

Mall of Africa in Midrand, Gauteng, was the busiest mall in the country, followed by Menlyn Park Shopping Centre in Menlyn, Pretoria.

This is according to aggregated and anonymised telemetry data provided to Lightstone by Tracker, which the former analysed. The data references vehicle stops at malls rather than individuals visiting malls.

Lightstone notes that its analysis only counted one stop per vehicle per mall per day.

“Lightstone estimates 4.3 million vehicle stops at 1,850 monitored malls/shopping centres on Black Friday this year, marginally up by 2.5% on last year,” it said.

However, it noted that there were 25.7 million vehicle stops at malls during Black Friday week in 2024, up 10% compared to the same period in 2023 and up 12% compared to the last week in October 2024.

According to Lightstone, large malls, or those above 70,000 square metres, recorded an average increase in stops of 28% during Black Friday week.

It said malls between 50,000 and 70,000 square meters saw 21% more stops compared to the previous year, while those measuring between 25,000 and 50,000 square metres had 16% more stops.

Smaller malls saw vehicle stops increase by 9% compared to the previous year.

Regarding specific malls, the Mall of Africa in Midrand, Gauteng, was the country’s busiest on Black Friday 2024. Lightstone notes that the top five malls were either in Gauteng or KwaZulu-Natal.

After Mall of Africa, Menlyn Park Shopping Centre in Pretoria was the second-busiest mall in the country on the date, followed by Gateway Theatre of Shopping and The Pavilion in KwaZulu-Natal in third and fourth.

Sandton City in Gauteng was the fifth busiest mall on the day, followed by Canal Walk Shopping Centre outside Cape Town in Sixth — the first mall outside of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

The chart below compares vehicle stops at the busiest malls on Black Friday 2024 to the same period in 2023. It also includes data on “dwell time”, or how long people are at malls.

According to Lightstone’s “dwell time data”, shoppers spent more time at only three malls on Black Friday 2024 than the year before.

These were Cornubia Mall, Galleria, and The Pavilion, all located in KwaZulu-Natal.

“Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront Victoria Wharf again topped the dwell time table in terms of minutes spent inside the mall, although 2024 was down to just over 130 minutes from nearly 230 minutes in 2023,” Lightstone added.

Lightstone said malls were busiest between noon and 16:00 on Black Friday 2024. While this mirrors trading patterns from the last Friday in October 2024, shopping activity was markedly higher on the morning of Black Friday.

“Lower-income groups made approximately 14% more visits to malls in the last week of November compared to the last week of October, while more affluent income groups increased their mall visits by around 10% during the same period,” said Lightstone.

The chart below compares mall dwell time across various income groups on Black Friday 2024.