With brick-and-mortar retail stores facing growing competition from global e-commerce giants like Shein and Temu, the Mall of Africa is embracing digital innovation to stay ahead.
This is according to Michael Clampett, asset and property management executive at Attacq, a JSE-listed real estate investment trust responsible for developing Waterfall City – home to the Mall of Africa.
Waterfall City has become a landmark development in South Africa, designed as a smart, sustainable urban precinct between Johannesburg and Pretoria. What began as a vast stretch of farmland has evolved into a thriving hub for residential, commercial, hospitality, retail and logistics ventures.
The Mall of Africa, the centrepiece of the precinct, draws strong foot traffic and increasing international retail interest. Attacq strengthened its stake in the development by acquiring full ownership of the mall in May 2024.
“We believe that Waterfall City is a world-class, amazing city that we had the opportunity to build here in South Africa,” said Clampett.
“From a technology perspective, what is important is planning because the problem with technology is it evolves very quickly.”
Clampett emphasised the need for proactive infrastructure planning, as the fast pace of technological change can quickly render systems obsolete.
“What we have tried to do, from an infrastructure perspective at Waterfall City, is to plan that infrastructure properly, so that we will be agnostic to future innovations or technologies. This involves things like how data will get transferred in the future, or even how street lights work.”
He pointed to an example currently being tested at two of Waterfall City’s major intersections, where Attacq is piloting artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse traffic patterns.
At present, traffic signals don’t change dynamically based on real-time vehicle volumes. However, as the AI learns daily, hourly and minute-by-minute trends, it will enable signals to adjust in response to real-time traffic data.
Emergence of new challengers
Clampett noted that the expansion of e-commerce in South Africa will continue to influence how developers like Attacq approach retail property offerings.
Online shopping, he said, is reshaping the sector. The entrance of Shein and Temu in the past couple of years introduced strong new players into the local market, he added.
“But at Mall of Africa, we are having a number of innovations. We have a business called Sook, a digitally-enabled space which is about 200 square metres. It’s got digital screens and movable furniture.
“This allows us to let out that space to a tenant on a daily basis. So, if you are an online business, and you want to try your physical hand at Mall of Africa, we can let that space to you for a weekend, etc. It’s plug-and-play where you login your brand and whatever you want to load on the content management system and within five minutes, you will have a store ready to trade.
“What we have seen is that a lot of businesses are now using it, and if they do well, it really gives us the opportunity to offer them a permanent space to invest capital with less risk.”
Clampett said this model means Attacq is no longer restricted to traditional multi-year leases.
“We now sign one-day leases and give that prospective retailer an opportunity, and then with more certainty, we can conclude the long-term leases.
“We’ve had some cool successes with that. Initially, we were just focused on online-only and micro retailers, to give them an opportunity. We felt that there was a need for that in the South African retail space.”
Capturing Tyla’s Grammy
He highlighted that even large retailers are embracing the model. Pepkor, for instance, tested its Refinery brand on the Sook platform.
“They took out the space for a month in order to understand what that brand was going to do, without signing a big lease agreement with us.”
Another notable use of the space occurred when Grammy winner Tyla returned to South Africa and signed a deal with the Sony record label.
“As part of the partnership, we hosted her for a day to give fans an opportunity to engage with her in person. So, once again, technology has enabled us to utilise that space in so many ways.”
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