Massmart has revealed the details of its first Builders store in East Africa. Covering 10,000m², the Builders Superstore will involve an investment of Sh500m ($4.65m) and be located in Nairobi’s Karen Waterfront Mall.
The planned store means that as well as South Africa, the Builders format is now in Kenya, Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia. The Kenyan store has actually been in the works since July 2018, when Massmart announced major expansion plans. The store was originally planned to open in October 2019. The Karen Waterfront mall is where Shoprite has just announced it is closing what was its fourth store in Kenya.
Massmart’s new Builders Superstore in Kenya will sell home improvement products as well as services such as mobile phone airtime for leading phone networks, utilities purchases from Kenya Power and Nairobi Water and bill payments for satellite tv providers DSTV, GOTV, StarTimes and Kwese.
The rationale for expansion in Kenya was set out by Massmart’s then CEO Guy Hayward: “Zambia and East Africa are interesting to us because they’re not totally dependent on mineral resources like West Africa is.” Hayward also said that a plus point for Kenya was its tourism industry, which is now taking a beating because of the COVID-19 travel downturn.
