this article first run in the New Vision on Friday September 24th, 2021
I shall miss Shoprite, and Game Stores. For the last decade and a bit, the two have been an integral part of my life, and for no pretentious reasons; despite a popular but very mistaken belief that Ugandans who did their shopping from Shoprite and Game Stores were wannabe bourgeois.
This kind of ‘bathroom analysis’ (supposed inspiration that comes when one is seated in the bathroom attending to other duties) is as misconceived as it is shallow and with no basis in logic. It is the same analysis that came up with the notion that since Shoprite and Game are exiting the country, then the Ugandan economy is weak. Have you heard of voodoo economics? Try bathroom economics.
Anyway, back to my missing Shoprite and Game. Before Shoprite opened its doors in 2,000, most appliances one would find in Ugandan stores and supermarkets were cheap stuff from China. No offence to China, which produces high quality goods for much of the world. But our traders would deliberately look for the cheap and rejected stuff, and then use our expensively acquired dollars to import it. That used to really piss me off, still does
Then came in Shoprite and Game Stores, with their own imports from South Africa (at first they even used to import the potatoes from SA to make fries). South Africa had just come out of apartheid, and resentment towards that country was still high, even in Uganda. But hey, I’d met Nelson Mandela about two years earlier, and I was all for the new rainbow nation. And its goods were superior to that Chinese junk one found in almost every shop.
So I didn’t care if some bathroom philosopher referred to me as a bourgie, they could go and buy that junk on Luwum and William Street (that was before Karim Hirji brought downtown to Kampala Road when he acquired the former UCB building).
I bought my first flat TV set from Game, and it had no problem till some nasty Ugandans broke into my house and took off with it. And, every Wednesday I’d look out for the deals that Game Store published in an insert in the New Vision. Very often I would rush there to find all the advertised goods had been bought off, so it wasn’t just me that thought it was a really good deal.
Game also had the best household stuff, from very low priced pillows and mattresses, to bathroom fittings and electrical appliances. Their gardening and outdoor section was the best in town, and the minor problem that you had to get the plugs changed from the South African round ones was worth it. And it still has the lowest prices for good whisky, you will understand if I don’t say ‘cheapest’.
Same thing with Shoprite, they had genuine stuff in this fake country used to fake goods and services. For one, it was the only place I could find the deodorant I use. Now I will probably have to get Jumia to order it from abroad, with the ‘international fees’ often twice the price of the item.
So why is Shoprite, and Games Stores, leaving? There are many reasons, and no doubt economists will come up with several studies to explain it. For one, local supermarkets copied the Shoprite model, and so one did not have to drive to the middle of town and navigate nasty traffic jams to buy groceries (why anybody would put a supermarket in Garden City still beats me).
That took business away from the likes of Shoprite, and then covid showed up, and for almost two years people could not readily travel to Lugogo or Entebbe Road to buy stuff. Add the increasing online shopping that has become the norm, and Shoprite had to cut its losses and run.
Many Ugandan supermarkets still have stuff from China, and my neighbourhood supermarket even has honey imported from Dubai. Surely, with high quality honey from Arua and Tooro available, who imports honey from Dubai? Ugandan traders will be the death of us, I tell you.
And please, stop doing your thinking and analysis when in the bathroom. We might not differentiate the outcome.
kalungikabuye 