{"id":837399,"date":"2025-09-11T16:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T14:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=837399"},"modified":"2025-09-11T16:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T14:01:07","slug":"50-year-old-retailer-closing-stores-across-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/837399\/50-year-old-retailer-closing-stores-across-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"50-year-old retailer closing stores across South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Popular footwear retailer Green Cross is closing its stores across South Africa amid an influx of cheap imported shoes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Founded in 1975, Green Cross became one of South Africa’s leading comfort footwear brands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2012, the group was acquired by JSE-listed AVI, which owns Five Roses, Provita, Willards, Bakers and several fashion brands, for R382.5 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, AVI has now decided to close the Green Cross retail stores across South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking at the group’s annual results for the 2025 financial year, CEO Simon Crutchley said the decision was difficult, but was necessary due to the heightened imports of cheap replicas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With AVI looking at the long-term return on deployed capital, the group believed it couldn’t afford to reinvest in its retail portfolio. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a slightly positive note, Crutchley said that layoffs were minimal as staff were transported to other parts of the group’s retail business, with the group also operating Spitz, Kurt Geiger and Gant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the financial year, the group closed 10 Green Cross stores across the country. The remaining three stores will close in this financial year when their leases expire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the Green Cross business will not completely shut down, with its sandals and school shoes still offered in the wholesale market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggles facing the group’s footwear and apparel segment could be seen in its results, where revenue declined by 7.9% to R1.62 billion.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group noted that the second half performance was impacted by the decision to close the Green Cross retail business, which required increased discounting to clear stock. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The segment\u2019s gross profit margins were slightly lower and were impacted by increased stock provisions on discontinued Green Cross lines and increased discounting at lower margins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although its selling and administrative costs were contained, once-off costs increased due to the closure of Green Cross stores and increased marketing investment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Operating profit decreased from R340.8 million last year, with the operating profit margin decreasing from 19.4% to 16.3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When excluding the impact of the Green Cross closure, the segment’s operating profit would have ended 12.1% lower with an operating profit margin of 18.9%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the struggles facing the footwear and apparel division, the overall group saw a somewhat strong performance, with the operating profit rising 7.8% to R3.6 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Retailers closing stores<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

AVI is not the only retailer closing stores in South Africa. Many others are struggling with the low-growth economic environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After posting heavy losses in the 2024 and 2025 financial years, the Pick n Pay Group<\/a> is in the process of closing or converting its core grocery stores to Boxers as it tries to return to profit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SPAR Group<\/a> also continues to downsize its presence in South Africa, especially in Gauteng, as it focuses on its core operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former department store giant, Edgars<\/a>, is also in the process of closing and shrinking its retail space, as the group looks to right-size its business after escaping business rescue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, while Woolworths\u2019 food business continues to grow, its Fashion, Beauty and Home segment has started shrinking its retail space amid struggling sales. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, several listed retailers are expanding their store networks across South Africa, including Shoprite<\/a>, Weaver Fintech <\/a>and Mr Price<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world’s largest retail brand, Walmart<\/a>, will also open stores this year, several years after acquiring Massmart, the owner of Makro and Game. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JSE-listed AVI is closing its Green Cross stores across South Africa, joining a list of retailers that are cutting back their store bases across South Africa. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":837402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[23590,23592,23588,23593,10387,2910,4067,7520,9838,23591,2819],"class_list":["post-837399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-avi","tag-gant","tag-green-cross","tag-kurt-geiger","tag-massmart","tag-mr-price","tag-pick-n-pay","tag-shoprite","tag-spar","tag-spitz","tag-walmart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837399"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837405,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837399\/revisions\/837405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}