Download PDFWhen loadshedding started, a lot of small businesses around the CBD in Johannesburg have been experiencing a lot of issues. These problems include losing customers and their businesses failing to make meet targets or make profits. Karibu conducted went out into the CBD to find out more about what issues small businesses have in terms of loadshedding.
“Loadshedding is loadshedding. There is nothing we can do to solve the loadshedding issue. We at Hammed Computers & Electronics have faced some issues regarding the loadshedding. It affects our sales as the business relies on electricity to do the work and most of our customers whenever it’s loadshedding and they see the place [is] dark outside they don’t even come in which makes it difficult to make sales for us to survive as a company. We don’t have a generator but we do have a backup battery, so whenever there is loadshedding it automatically switches on,” said one of the employees from Hammed Computers & Electronics who wanted to remain anonymous.
“As a furniture [store], we rely on electricity to have lights in our shop so that people can see what we [are] selling, and to also track our orders from the suppliers. Checking orders for our customers, it also requires electricity. We are on the main street so for us to display our furniture for customers to see, it really means a lot to us. We are working on getting a generator but hopefully this loadshedding will end soon,” said Gloria from RGB furniture’s.
“Experiencing loadshedding while buying something at [a] shop really makes you feel uncomfortable. For instance, I went to buy food at some fast food restaurant, I put in my card to swipe then loadshedding hit, it declined as the machine lost signals. These are the kind of things we experience as customers along with not being able to get our products because they are not finished due to loadshedding,” said Anele.
Loadshedding is a really big problem in society especially for small businesses even though they might have generators but the petrol or diesel to use on those generators is costly. If this whole thing carries on, the economy will suffer a great loss as most businesses rely on electricity.
This article was submitted on 17 February 2023. You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Karibu! Online (www.Karibu.org.za), and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
