Consumers Tighten Their Belts

For some small business owners in Botswana, the biggest challenge is no longer attracting customers but getting them to spend. Entrepreneurs in the personal grooming and transport sectors say consumer spending habits have shifted, with customers increasingly delaying or avoiding purchases and services they once used regularly. At The Wash Day Salon in White City, Gaborone, owner Kenamile Mogapi says his business has slowed significantly as more customers choose to cut their own hair at home.

According to Mogapi, many of his regular clients have bought their own hair-cutting machines, reducing the need for routine visits to the salon. “People who used to cut with me in the salon have now bought machines,” he said. “They are not cutting like before.

They will only come when they have important functions to attend when they want stylish cuts. Otherwise, when they are home they just cut at home.” The change, he says, has had a direct impact on his income. “Before I used to make around P2,000 a week.

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Nowadays it’s tough. Now it’s about P400 a week,” he said. Mogapi said the decline in customers has made trading increasingly difficult compared with previous years.

Vincent Benoni, an InDrive driver, says lower demand and higher operating costs have reduced his weekly earnings. “Things are tough, very tough,” he said. “As we are speaking, I don’t have money to pay rent.” Benoni said that during busier periods he generated between P4,500 and P4,800 a week, but his earnings have since fallen sharply.

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