CRESTA – Want to do your Christmas shopping early this year? Showbiz Cresta’s winter sale is on until 23 August, and they’re doing it to ‘spoil their customers.’
“We want to say thank you to our loyal customers and treat them with big discounts,” store owner, Bhai Seedat said on 31 July. The sale is already on at Cresta Shopping Centre, and will be in the colourfully decorated promotion court until 11 August, and in store until the 23rd.
Art materials, brushes, paints, canvases, beautiful gift sets and easels are 40 per cent off, and many of the beautiful gifts and furniture items in Showbiz are half-price.
This diverse art-, costume-, craft and gift-store is almost a Johannesburg institution, and it’s also one of the foremost places in town to buy fancy-dress costumes.
It’s also probably the sole-owned business that’s been in Cresta the longest. “We’ve been open in Cresta for 28 years,” Seedat said.
After years in the retail business, Seedat opened his store in Cresta in 1986 and it’s been there ever since.
“Some of my customers have been with me for all those 28 years,” Seedat said.
“Through the years, customers have bought their children to the store, and now those children’s grandchildren are shopping here. Your customers become your friends. It’s wonderful.”
The diverse nature of the store’s merchandise, and its good name, draws customers from all over the country. “We get people coming here to buy their supplies from Namibia, Bloemfontein and Rustenburg. They want to do their shopping here,” Seedat said proudly.
Seedat has 16 staff members, some who have also served the shop for its 28-year existence. He says he’d like them to take over the shop when he retires. “They’ve done so much for this store, it’s the least I can do.”
He refuses to branch out to other locations, saying that he likes having his single store and its wholesale division.
“Our winter sale is on every year, except for last year when the shopping centre was being renovated,” he said.
“And the renovations were worth it – Cresta as a whole – and our store – look absolutely beautiful.”
