CAPE TOWN – An anonymous benefactor donated R270 000 to lucky customers in the PEP store at Marsh and Zietsman streets in Mossel Bay on Wednesday.
PEP Marketing Executive Beyers van der Merwe said the person wanted to reward staff who had served them at a local restaurant with some items of their choice at PEP, and then decided to expand the extraordinary gesture to everyone in the PEP 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 said R192 500 in sales were paid for on the day and the balance of R77 500 is being used in the PEP Lay-by Buddies scheme which allows anyone to anonymously assist customers to pay-off their interest-free lay-bys.
PEP will match the R77 500 and all lay-bys made at the Marsh and Zietsman streets store in Mossel Bay before Thursday November 12 will be paid off. Lay-by customers will receive an SMS with a reference number to collect their goods in this store.
Since the launch of the Lay-by Buddy, which started during lockdown, PEP has contributed R1.5 million towards paying off customers lay-bys and more than R100 000 in donations have come from people wanting to help via online or in-store donations.
Remarkably, a similar incident occurred at a Mossel Bay PEP store in December 2019 when a different anonymous donor paid off another huge sum of money via Lay-by Buddy vouchers.
BUSINESS REPORT