Creative writing: Shopping.

Words for the week: punishment, friendship, sunshine, shopping, board games, beginning

Meaning of shopping:

Shopping is an activity in which a customer browses the available goods or services presented by one or more retailers with the potential intent to purchase a suitable selection of them.

Shopping – Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Shopping

Fifty years of shopping

We all know the meaning of shopping. Shopping will always be there because we as humans always require something.

South African shopping experiences

In the 1960s, while in high school, I went on shopping outings once a year. During the December holidays my older sister, who was in teachers’ college, and I could travel to Pretoria and browse the stores in the city centre. We lived about twenty-five miles(40km) out of Pretoria. My dad dropped us off at dawn, in Mitchell Street, Pretoria West. From there we took a bus to the City Centre with its large stores. 

I googled some history of the principal shops in those days. First, we went to the OK Bazaar. You could find all you can think of here. To me, as a farm girl, this was like Christmas. I didn’t know where to look. We likewise went to the CTC Bazaar, which was more pricey than the OK. After a day’s shopping, we took the bus back to Pretoria West, where my dad picked us up after work- tired, but content with the day out.

In 1968, I started my teaching career and had to shop on my own. I shopped for clothes in Edgars. Some years later, Edgars had clothing designed by Penny Coelen Rey, miss South Africa crowned in 1958 Miss world, the first one from Africa. Her designs were the proper fit for me. As soon as China took over the manufacturing of her fashion clothing, it just wasn’t the same anymore.  Sometimes I shopped at Woolworths for clothes, too. South Africa’s Woolworth chain is not the same as the Australian Woolworths. 

I moved to Potgietersrus in 1972. I shopped at the OK Bazaar at first. The OK could not survive the backlashes, and I had to use Checkers instead, which was more a grocery store that slowly evolved into a department store. 

 Pick and Pay arrived in a modern shopping mall in the late 1990s. You could purchase whatever you needed at the Pick and Pay. A department store with, foodstuff, groceries, clothing and some white-ware too. It was satisfying to shop in the new mall and at Pick and Pay since the year 2000. 

New Zealand shopping.

In New Zealand, I choose to do my grocery shopping at Pack and Save and in between at Countdown. Since Covid turned up in full force in mid-2020, I started buying my groceries online. It saves time but not money to do it online because they charge $14 for deliveries. Now I browse online and even purchase some of my clothes and shoes online too. 

Interesting places and history from the 60s in South Africa

OK Bazaars is one of the oldest retail shop in South Africa established in 1927 by partners Michael Miller and Sam Cohen still in existence today. The first shop opened in corner President and Eloff streets in Johannesburg and over the years the brand grew to have more than 100 shops around South Africa.

OK Bazaars and Garlick’s were the two, two-story department stores anchoring the original shopping levels of the Carlton Centre, at the time the tallest building in Africa.^[2]

OK Bazaars was financially strained and was acquired by the Shoprite group.

CTC bazaar

1960s fashion!

Busy street 1960s

CTC Bazaars details – Artefacts

Became OK Bazaars and is currently (2012) Woolworths. (FRIBA nom papers 1945; AB&E Feb 

Pick n Pay is the second-largest supermarket chain store in South Africa and was established in 1967. It can also be found in other regions of southern Africa, including Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, and had plans to open in Malawi but has yet to do so. Wikipedia

Woolworths Holdings Limited is a South Africa-based multinational retail company that owns the South African retail chain Woolworths, and Australian retailers David Jones and Country Road Group. Woolworths, however, has no association with Australia’s Woolworths supermarket chain. Wikipedia

Edgars is a Johannesburg-based chain of stores, nearly all in Southern Africa, variously described as a speciality department store or simply as stores selling clothing, shoes, homeware & beauty products. The chain has just over 200 stores as of July 2020, with multiple stores in South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Botswana as well as in the capital cities of eSwatini (Swaziland), Lesotho, and Ghana.^[1] It was founded in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1929. It is owned by Edcon, which is looking for a buyer due to economic difficulties stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.^[2]

Edgars Stores Limited is a separate company operating the businesses in Zimbabwe: Edgars and Jet department stores, as well as Edgars Financial Services and Carousel, its Bulawayo-based manufacturing arm.^[3]

Pick n Pay is the second-largest supermarket chain store in South Africa and was established in 1967. It can also be found in other regions of southern Africa, including Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, and had plans to open in Malawi but has yet to do so. Wikipedia

Pick n Pay is the second-largest supermarket chain store in South Africa and was established in 1967. It can also be found in other regions of southern Africa, including Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, and had plans to open in Malawi but has yet to do so. Raymond Ackerman purchased three Pick n Pay supermarkets from Jack Goldin in Cape Town and served as executive chairman until his retirement in 2010. His eldest son, Gareth, is the current chairman.^[3]

As of 2018, the company was operating over 1,600 locations across seven countries in Southern Africa. In that year’s annual report, the company announced a planned expansion into Nigeria, and that it was considering expanding into Ghana. Pick n Pay also operates stores under the Boxer brand in South Africa and Swaziland

Penelope Anne Coelen is a retired South African actress, model and beauty queen who was Miss World 1958. She was the first major international titleholder to come from Africa. Wikipedia

Miss World 1958

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