The big South African retailer competing with Game

Family-owned department store group Kloppers is taking on Game and filling the gap left after Massmart abruptly closed all its Dion Wired stores in March 2020.

All three retail brands have histories dating back to the 1960s and 70s, and benefited tremendously from television’s arrival in South Africa in 1976.

Game was cofounded in 1970 by Alan Hellman and Jack Schaeffer, who opened their first store on Smith Street in Durban.

Hellman and Schaeffer believed shopping was being taken too seriously and had become boring.

They wanted to create a “fun” identity and retail environment — hence the name, Game.

Dion Stores was also founded in 1970, but actually traces its origins to a chain of furniture and appliance stores called Rave.

After selling Rave at the age of 25, founder Dion Friedland decided to launch a new department store brand under his first name.

Eight years later, he bought Rave back for a song and merged it into Dion.

By 1985, when Friedland sold Dion Stores to make his second fortune, the retail chain claimed to have the largest retail outlet in Johannesburg.

Friedland went on to establish a hedge fund called Magnum Fund Management and launched a body building career, competing and winning in several competitions over the years.

Massmart acquired Dion Stores in 1993 and Game in 1998.

It favoured the Game brand, and all Dion stores were either converted to Game or shut down by 2008.

However, it wasn’t the end for the Dion brand. Still seeing some value in it, Massmart used the name Dion Wired to launch a new retail chain focusing on mid-range to high-end technology products.

Unfortunately the model and Massmart’s strategy proved unsuccessful, and the Dion brand met its end in March of 2020. Massmart has also closed several Game stores and announced a pilot to test small-format Makro stores inside existing Game outlets.

However, where Game and Dion Wired have struggled, Kloppers has flourished.

Established by the late Willem Klopper Sr in Bloemfontein in 1967, Kloppers set itself apart from other retailers with its “cash is king” motto.

Instead of selling goods on credit at high profit margins, it focused on higher turnover and offered cash customers better prices.

Kloppers has also had a storied history.

In 1981, it bought the 10,000-square-meter Greatermans branch in Bloemfontein when the company closed its South African branches in 1981.

In 1983, Willem Klopper received a very attractive offer from Christo Wiese’s Pepkor. He sold the business with the former Greatermans building and retired at 57.

Some of the Kloppers directors went to work for Pepkor, but three of Klopper’s sons — Willem Jr, Steva, and Leon — broke away.

In 1984, they launched a new shop called Juniors on the premises of the old Kloppers.

This drew the ire of some of the new Kloppers directors, who vowed to shut the brothers down within six months.

As the brothers tell it, this was like waving a flag before a bull.

Two years later, Kloppers was all but handed to them on a silver platter and merged into Juniors.

In the years that followed, the Juniors name was retired, and three more Klopper brothers joined the business.

Another major development in the 1990s was the establishment of purchasing organisation Iser, which later became Iser-Expert.

Founded with Tafelberg Furnishers and Hirsch’s, Iser’s purpose was to consolidate the buying power of independent resellers like Kloppers and prevent bigger competitors from trampling them.

Iser became affiliated with Expert Group, a retail alliance also founded in 1967 that provides support and services to retailers of consumer electronics and appliances.

Hirsch’s eventually broke away from the Iser-Expert alliance and handles its own buying now.

However, Iser-Expert CEO Jonny Aarons told MyBroadband that they have 450 independent stores in their South African network.

Seventeen of those have been granted permission to use the Expert brand.

For example, Kloppers and Tafelberg co-brand stores carrying products sourced through their purchasing venture as Expert Kloppers and Expert Tafelberg.

This strategy has proven successful, with Iser-Expert achieving an annual average compound growth of 17% over its previous three financial years.

Kloppers has also launched stores in George, Knysna, Gqeberha, and, most recently, Pretoria.

On 1 June 2024, the company held a grand opening event for its Expert Kloppers store at Castle Gate Lifestyle Shopping Centre in Erasmuskloof, just East of Centurion.

“The success of the Pretoria store opening has set the stage for more exciting events to come,” the company said.

In addition to their physical outlets, Kloppers and Tafelberg also operate e-commerce platforms, selling online and delivering to South Africa’s major centres.

Iser-Expert also operates a website for Expert Stores, selling consumer electronics, and small and large appliances.