"Nearly 12 million South Africans participate in 440 000 stokvels that plough R54-billion into the economy annually," says Reardon Sanderson, general manager: group sales and marketing at Tiso Blackstar Group.
"It’s not only an incredible witness to savings discipline that comes from necessity, but it also represents a formidable amount of spending power. And this is why marketers are sitting up," says Sanderson.
African Response is a leading market research agency of stokvel groups, and has conducted a range of qualitative and quantitative surveys to assist businesses in developing stokvel strategies over the past seven years.
The Sowetan/Sunday World National Stokvel Survey is nationally representative, with a randomly selected sample of 2 500 respondents. Thirty percent of the sample covers small towns, rural and deep rural areas, with the balance being large towns, cities and metropolitan regions.
The survey was designed in line with the national urbanisation rate of 64% (Statistics South Africa), with data weighted to the 2017 mid-year population estimates of which 31.2% of the 56.5 million South Africans are 16 years and older.
The Sowetan and Sunday World will publish the research insights as well as highlight the brands and businesses that stood out in the survey.
In addition, Tiso Blackstar will be engaging brand-owners and marketers interested in customised sessions to understand the impact of the stokvel phenomenon.
The sessions will provide demographic and geographic descriptions that contextualise the various stokvel types, which include 'burial', 'money', 'saving', ''grocery', 'investment', 'birthday' and 'holiday' stokvels.
For more information, contact jamesj@tisoblackstar.co.za.