In 1955 the sole owner of a general dealer shop in Upington,
Gustav Gottschalk, decided to sell his small store due to his advanced years.
This store, called the Bargain Shop, dealt in second-hand furniture, shoes,
clothing, food, medicine, bicycles and even donkey carts. Gottschalk ran the
shop profitably for many years with the help of his very capable assistant,
Piet Strauss. He was adamant that he would sell the store to Gawie Esterhuyzen,
who was a partner in a legal firm in Upington, handled some of his legal
affairs. Gawie approached Renier to help him operate the business on a
part-time basis Renier spend his Saturdays at the shop under guidance of Gottschalk
to learn the tricks of the trade, for as he readily admitted, he had no
experience or knowledge of how to run a shop.
When
Gottschalk finally left the business, Renier was fortunate enough to keep the
skills and experience of Gottschalk’s employee, Piet Strauss, and the latter
soon became a friend and his right hand in the running of the store. Strauss
was an invaluable source of knowledge, skill, tact, and was hardworking and
trustworthy.
Renier now became involved full-time and began to restructure the nature
of the business. It changed from Gottschalk’s general warehouse to selling low-priced clothing and the
elimination of credit sales. The shop
began showing a growth in sales and profit during the next few months and
Renier enlisted the part-time help of Alice and Kotie Elof, with Gawie working
on Saturdays. Having realized that there was a need in the market for what the
store was now selling, it gradually became clear to Renier that it was indeed a
viable business. Renier now had to take care of virtually every aspect of his
fledgling business himself, one of the most important of which was the
purchasing of stock. This required him driving one or more times per month to
Cape Town where he bought just enough stock to fill up his vehicle, and then
drove back to Upington the same day to have the stock on the shelves the next
morning.
In 1957
Renier converted his store into a private company and called it Bargain Stores
(Pty) Ltd which was the holding company. He continued to experiment with
different products, prices and methods of promotion, but by now he had
formulated his business idea. In January 1959 Renier, at the age of 28, opened a
second store called Upington Volksklere (Pty) Ltd, in Scott Street in Upington.
The idea was to use the new store for a period of a year to further experiment
with selling discounted clothing.
In 1960 he amalgamated the two stores into what was named BG Bazaars
and moved to a larger premise in the heart of Upington’s business district,
with a small warehouse. With the business beginning to grow rapidly Renier
increased his personnel, and decided to expand beyond Upington and to other areas in the
Northern and Western Cape.
As an
experiment Renier introduced the quite innovative concept of self- service (as
opposed to being served by someone from behind a counter) into his stores, enabling
customers ‘to touch’ the clothes and to try it on in dressing rooms. Contrary
to the tenets and philosophy of Apartheid (in particular, the Separate
Amenities Act) Renier also allowed black and white customers to use the same
dressing cubicles. By the
mid-1960’s the four BG Bazaars stores were turning out a healthy profit and the intention was to open at least 10 stores in towns like Kimberley,
Postmastburg, Prieska, Vredendal, Calvina, Malmesbury, Moreesburg and Paarl.
The company’s successful business principles were based on good
quality clothing, shoes and blankets at very low prices, with friendly personal
service and with low overheads. The stores were neither flashy nor fashion
houses – just plain value for money, big volumes and low margins, similar in
philosophy to today’s giants like Wal-Mart, the biggest retailer in the world.
