Convenience Stores Closing Down

Convenience stores are self-explanatory. You run out of milk or apples, you run downstairs to the convenience store. Note that I said ‘run downstairs.’ It’s because convenience stores were incorporated into urban planning to service tall apartment buildings. Some of them were in building themselves, because of mixed use urban planning.

Example, a 15-storey building. All floors would be rented out and the ground floor would be designated retail for a convenience store or commercial laundry. Fast forward to 2024. Some convenience stores are out of business, and we cannot blame the 2020 pandemic. Some had been gathering dust long before COVID-19.

We cannot say everybody abandoned downtown and went uptown or the suburbs. Downtown is great if you don’t have a car; you turned 18 and moved out of your parents' house; you are a new immigrant; you work downtown or you are a student at the university’s city campus.

Businesses are closing down left, right and center, but apartment buildings are full. There'll always be a demand for rental housing downtown. Why then, are convenient stores like this one going out of business? Apartment-dwellers still need batteries and apple juice in the middle of the night. Maybe it’s what they have on the shelves. Neighborhoods change, but convenience stores still carry the same liqorice they carried 20 years ago. Maybe prices are a deterrent. We pay more for things at these stores because we understand that we are paying for convenience. Maybe night traffic diminished because of bad publicity that downtown is not safe.

I must give the local Chamber of Commerce a call, to nail down why convenience stores are struggling to keep afloat.

Nonqaba waka Msimang

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