Jannie Vermeulen, Ekspa and Adno’s
Benoni, Gauteng, SA – Up until October, it was a tough year, but then it started to improve. We had a Black Friday offering, and quite a few parents took the opportunity to buy early at lower prices.
     December was up on the previous year, and our first day of trading in January was very good. We supply uniforms for 34 schools, so we’re very busy.
     We still have to get to the end of February to see whether we will be up on 2023/2024 overall, but it’s looking promising. I have heard that some other school wear retailers have not done well.
     Parents were affected by interest rates on cars and bonds, and we were also affected by a very mild winter.
     Getting stock wasn’t a problem – many suppliers delivered early, which allowed us to top up where we were short. On the shoe side, we have 5 or 6 suppliers, covering quite a wide range of price points.

Yunus Hansa, Luggage Centre
Newcastle, KZN, SA – Trade for most of last year was poor. In December, it wasn’t very good, but there was demand, including on the school wear side, which was surprising. These next 2 weeks are very crucial for us, and we’re hoping the demand continues.

Idris Pandor, Gem Schoolwear
Durban, KZN, SA – Since Education is always on top of the minds of parents, we are fortunate that we see an uptake in purchases of uniforms as soon as schools have their orientation days towards the end of November and early December.  It is always the new intake in Primary and High Schools that drive the early sales.
     The eager and wise parents buy early before Christmas and New Year. The parents with kids that are already at school do the top up buying after New Year and that is where it becomes challenging when they throng to the stores in the last 10 days before schools open and we need to be ready with our stocks. Planning is very essential, in fact planning at Gem Schoolwear starts as soon as January is over.
     Gem Schoolwear produces uniforms that are locally manufactured, by South Africans for South Africans, and are priced competitively. We are proud to create employment for hundreds of employees locally.
     So far up to the end of December, there has been an improvement in sales in our retail stores as well as our wholesale division compared to last year. We hope this trend continues into 2025. Our online store is also showing a positive growth, and this is a market that we need to nurture.
     We do our best to carry a large range of basic school wear to support our school wear dealers as well as school shops countrywide and beyond our borders at short notice while "special orders" do take anything between 4 to 8 weeks to produce.


Chiman Harjeven, Knight’s Shoes/City Fashions
Grahamstown, E. Cape, SA – We’ve only just started with back-to-school. There wasn’t much of that in December, but there seems to be a lot of interest now. We’ll know more next week.
     December trade generally was better than I expected – not great, but I was pleased.

Milan, Italy (03 January 2025) – Italian footwear exports dropped in the first 9 months of 2024, according to the manufacturers’ association, Assocalzaturifici Italiani. Extracts from the report follow:
     Declines in exports (-9.2% in value on January-September 2023) with the sharp reduction in orders, had heavy repercussions on production activity (-18.9% Istat index of industrial production) and turnover (-9.7%). This is the picture taken by the report of the Confindustria Accessori Moda Study Centre for Assocalzaturifici, which shows how, with the effect of the post-Covid rebound over, and after a 2023 of substantial stability (at least in value), 2024 closes with negative signs in all the main variables. Estimating a sectoral turnover that the first 12-month projections show slowing by -9.3%, to 13.2 billion euros (almost 1.4 billion less than the previous year) and with inevitable effects on business demographics and employment.
     “In the third quarter of 2024 there was no turnaround in the sector's economic situation,” explains Giovanna Ceolini, president of Assocalzaturifici. ”On the contrary, more than 60% of companies closed with turnover below the levels achieved in the same period of 2023, with reductions of more than -20% for 1 out of 5 companies. The cumulative data for the first 9 months therefore confirm the difficulties that had already emerged in the first part of the year. The reflective performance of many major international economies, in Europe and outside the EU, and a geopolitical context that is anything but favourable, which has seen the addition, in addition to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, of another front of instability in the Middle East, have severely penalized footwear exports in 2024. If in the European Union sales show fairly moderate declines (-2.6% in value overall, with -2% in France and -6.2% in Germany), on non-EU markets the drop is -15.3%.
     “Results on which were undoubtedly also weighed by the slowdown suffered by many luxury brands, whose development had contributed in recent years to sustaining sector dynamics.”
     In detail, the report shows how, with reference to foreign demand, the trend is unfavourable for all product segments, with the sole exception of shoes with rubber uppers, whose exports grew by +8.2% in volume and +1.3% in value. On the other hand, shoes with leather uppers – which have always been characteristic of Italian production and cover 65% of foreign sales in value – recorded contractions of -7.1% in quantity and -8.2% in value.
     Examining the markets, EU partners overall show fewer penalizing dynamics than those related to non-EU countries. Among the latter, positive signals only from China (+1.7% in value, with +19% in quantities), Hong Kong (+8.7%) and especially the United Arab Emirates (+26.3%), despite a moderate decline in pairs for both; and then Turkey, with increases over 10% in both volume and value. Among the countries marked by negative dynamics, Switzerland stands out, although the collapse in flows suffered in the first 9 months of 2024 (-51.3% in value and -35.4% in quantity) is to be attributed, as repeatedly commented above, to a change in the distribution strategies of luxury brands, which have replaced transit in Swiss warehouses with direct shipment to final destination markets.
     Finally, the prolongation of the unfavourable economic phase resulted in negative balances in the first 9 months of 2024, compared to the close of 2023, in the figures for the birth-mortality of companies (-144 active shoe factories, equal to -4%) and employment (which showed a decrease of -2. 619 employees, equal to -3.6%), as well as a surge in the use of wage supplementation tools: in the leather industry, the authorized hours of layoffs rose to 26 million (a +139.4% over the 10.9 million hours in January-September 2023), which is more than 4.5 times those granted in the same pre-Covid 2019 period.

Salma Muhammad, Bhamjee’s Shoe Centre
Johannesburg, Gauteng, SA – It’s an absolute disaster. For the year up to December, we’ve been trading at 50% of what we normally trade at, and this month – when we would expect turnover to be much, much higher, we’re trading at what we would normally trade for the rest of the year.
     I’m blaming it all on Shein and Temu, and government’s complete lack of effective protection against them.
     We’re all guilty, and it’s not just footwear. My domestic helper is buying from them. I buy from them – not shoes, obviously! – but items like party goods, where I’d rather spend less. People at all levels have been buying from them, and no wonder – their shoe retail prices are frequently lower than my cost price for the same item.
     Talking to other retailers, it appears that we’re all affected by this.
     The banking sector says ecommerce is at an all-time high, but much of – most of it? – is going to offshore accounts.
     Government HAS to come to the party, or lots of businesses will close, and even more people will be out of work.


Dave Vallabh, Bilimoria Fishing Tackle
East London, E. Cape, SA – Business is very good. Our Vincent store mostly attracts locals, but our Beacon Bay store is a gateway to the Transkei resorts for visitors from the interior, and there are lots of holidaymakers.
     Most of our business is fishing tackle, but we do quite well with waders and shoes and sandals for fishing and work-related activities like sewerage, but on footwear specifically, there probably has been a drop because of Shein and Temu – there are lots of aqua shoes on their sites, and people will go for price. You can’t blame them, although buying sizes online isn’t easy.


Greg Bing, A.P. Jones
Cape Town, W. Cape, SA – Trading for us from 01/12/24 to 18/12/24 has been average. We are meeting last years’ figures for the same period, but still nowhere near where we were pre-Covid. Some folk are suggesting that we are bloody lucky to be achieving the same turnover and that we should be grateful for this. They may have a point.

Kamlesh Chagan, American Clothing/The Vault
Cape Town, W. Cape, SA – It’s been strange trading the past few weeks.
     Black Friday fell on the month end weekend, instead of a week earlier previously. So the month end and Black Friday coincided and ended off fairly.
     But I’m of the opinion that consumers have lost interest in this Black Friday trend.
     Sales tapered off after 9th December and the past weekend of 13th picked up again. The past weekend was a good uptick and trade was brisk, but one can clearly see it’s about price and value for money. Customers do not have the disposable income to spend like previous.
     Retail has been like a “see-saw”.
     There’s been a delay in deliveries, especially with delays in shipping of both raw material for local production and imports. September and October footwear orders from the likes of Bolton, Eddels and, worst of all, Dick Whittington, only came through recently.
     As independent retailers we’ve changed direction, and our focus switched away from the big athleisure brands. We’re needed to rekindle our traditional outfitting offerings which is gaining momentum, thankfully.
     Strangely we’ve had an unseasonal demand for some of our winter clothing the last few weeks. Customers were shopping for warm clothing, jackets etc caused by our inclement weather of late.
     This year Christmas Eve is on Tuesday instead of Sunday last year, hoping that these two extra days assist us.
     We are hoping to end off positively, pay our bills and have better trading in 2025.

Cape Town, W. Cape, SA – The rating agency Moody's Investors Service has concluded an update on Pepkor Holdings Ltd's credit analysis. Moody's has affirmed Pepkor's Corporate Family Rating of Ba2 and National Scale Long Term Rating of Aa1.za with a stable outlook. Moody's highlights Pepkor's stable operating performance with demonstrated resilience to economic shocks, positive organic growth, conservative financial policies and robust credit metrics as key factors reflected in the rating. 

Zubeda Khan, Classique Shoes
Scottburgh, KZN, SA – December has been very quiet, and it’s the first year that I have found it like this. We did have Black Friday specials, but there wasn’t much response – it was much like any other Friday trading.

I don’t know why trade is so poor at the moment. We’re not in the centre, but I hear the retailers there are also complaining.

We just have to hope it improves.

Cassim Dawjee, D-Style by Daks HQ
Harrismith, Free State, SA – Black Friday was decent. So far in December, trading conditions have been very difficult, but we’re hoping they hold up over the Festive Season.