Success Factors of Youth-owned Spaza Shops in Rural Communities of Thulamela Municipality, South Africa

Despite the significance of small retailers in South Africa, researchers mainly focus on documenting their failures, challenges and weaknesses while neglecting the success factors that enabled their existence dating back to the Apartheid periods when they were called "Spaza shops". This paper provides insight into the success factors of youth-owned spaza shops in the rural areas of South Africa. This provides information about the support required to further strengthen these businesses. A mixed study approach was followed to attain the study objectives. Snowball sampling was utilised to select 20 participants that provided qualitative data and 255 respondents that provided quantitative data. The thematic content analysis was used to analyse qualitative data, while the SPSS version 27 (Principal Component Analysis tool) was utilised for the quantitative data. Various themes emerged from the qualitative data which include business alliances, bulk buying, customer care, social networks, accessibility, and government support. These factors and more obtained from literature informed the questionnaire used to collect quantitative data. A four-factor structure with a variance of 54.59% was obtained from Principal Component Analysis, with the main success factors being marketing ability (16.97%), good customer care (14.42%), small business knowledge (12.08%) and commitment (11.13%). Support must target further strengthening these attributes to enhance the success of spaza shops owned by youth in rural areas of Thulamela Municipality