The goal in developing a stand-alone, off-the-grid store was:

• to minimise the input costs of opening new stores in the group’s African operations;
• to create a safe, friendly place to shop; and
• to be self-sufficient by being able to prevent business interruption.

The concept for the store was developed in Cape Town, in association with various industry experts. Because the store is modular and made from repurposed shipping containers, they had to be constructed in Cape Town and shipped to their destination, Kasumbalesa, a town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the border with Zambia. The project team considered many aspects, from structure to power, transport and assembly on location. The business case for the project was to improve efficiencies when rolling out new stores in African countries. Traditional store infrastructure is not always readily available, or is very expensive. Designing and building a stand-alone, off-the-grid store has presented more opportunities:

• Reduced input costs – decreasing the cost of store layout and improvements. Should the store be moved, these costs are not lost;
• Reduced rental – moving from formal centre management to vacant land rental;
• Increased footprint – expanding into wholesale, smaller towns, outlying areas, and cross-border locations;
• Reduced services costs – one-off installation costs for electricity through solar, with the reduced risk of downtime
  due to interrupted power supply; and
• Test markets – the ability to test markets through pop-up store concepts.

One of the biggest challenges was meeting the requirements for electricity. The project team included Rubicon, a market leader in renewable energy systems. They advised, designed and built They advised, designed and built the off-grid solution.