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Message: [QUOTE="Nehanda, post: 30636, member: 2262"] Edgar's Stores made almost twice as much money as last year despite tough times in Zimbabwe. Their sales jumped nearly 95% to reach ZWL244.8 billion for the period ending January 7, 2024. Most customers paid cash for purchases in local currency - about 93% of sales. The pattern looked different with US dollar transactions, where credit made up 73% of sales. The main Edgars chain brought in ZWL139.3 billion, nearly double the previous year's total. Actual items sold dropped about 13% to 1.36 million units compared to last year. Local currency buyers mostly used cash, but when shopping with US dollars, customers preferred credit by a large margin. The company faced many challenges from unstable exchange rates and rising prices. Inflation hurt customer spending power throughout the period. Interest rates stayed high for most of the year, though borrowing costs in local currency came down slightly near the end. These factors caused fewer items to sell compared to the year before. The financial arm of the business, Clubhouse Microfinance, expanded its US dollar loan book by 17%. Clubhouse ended with US$1.1 million in loans, up from US$0.95 million last year. During this growth, they focused on safer loan products. The loan quality remained strong, with 83.6% of accounts staying current. Faster approval systems helped customers receive money quicker. The manufacturing division called Carousel saw huge growth, with sales jumping almost 170% to ZWL17.7 billion and unit production increasing 37% to 193,500 items. [/QUOTE]

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