A Christmas Angel – who wishes to remain anonymous – spent over R192 500 on shoppers who were in the store at the time, and then spent a further R77 500 on customers who had clothing on lay-bye.
Mossel Bay, South Africa (13 November 2020) – An anonymous benefactor – who is being called a Christmas Angel – donated R270 000 to lucky customers in a PEP store at Marsh, and Zietsman streets in Mossel Bay this week.
Beyers van der Merwe, the Marketing Executive of PEP says the person wanted to reward staff who had served them at a local restaurant with some items of their choice at the store, so took them to the Marsh, and Zietsman streets store and while there… decided to expand the extraordinary gesture to everyone in the clothing store at the time.
“The donor also went out into the street and encouraged passers-by to come into the store. Understandably, this caused some security issues and the store had to be closed for a while.”
Van der Merwe says R192 500 in sales were paid for on the day and the balance of R77 500 is being used to pay off lay-bys.
“The lay-by payment method has been popular in South Africa for years, which basically delays gratification. This method allows you to pay off the goods over an agreed period of time, with the retailer keeping the goods until you have paid the full price. Usually, you pay a deposit upfront and then make regular payments within the payment period until the total price is paid.”
After seeing what the Christmas Angel did, the Mossel Bay store was inspired to match the R77 500 and pay for more lay-bys made at the Marsh, and Zietsman streets store!
But you can also help South Africans in need!
At the start of the lockdown, the South African clothing store chain launched a campaign to help South Africans during lockdown – the concept allows anyone to anonymously assist customers to pay-off their lay-bys.
Since the launch of the campaign, PEP has contributed R1,5 million towards paying off customers lay-by’s and over R100k in donations have come from people wanting to help via online or in-store donations.
Remarkably, a similar incident occurred at the same store in December last year when a different anonymous donor paid off another huge sum of money to help South Africans who had clothing on lay-by.
by 