Pretoria, Gauteng, SA - This company has been in business since 1906, and we’ve diversified to do wholesaling and retailing. At the moment, however, business is inconsistent.

We used to supply a lot to government departments, but that has dried up because I think they don’t have available funds.

We also used to supply a film maker in Cape Town with military-type uniforms as and when they needed them, but that also has largely stopped.

Following covid, we closed our second branch.

We’ve signed up to supply Takealot, where there is quite a lot of activity if you have the right product.

We are now also in the process of developing a website, so the business is taking new directions. 

• Nike remains the No. 1 brand for all teens in both apparel (35%) and footwear (61%)
• New Balance surpassed Vans as the No. 4 favourite footwear brand, New Balance gained ~200 bps of mindshare Y/Y while Vans lost ~350 bps of mindshare Y/Y
• Crocs ranked No. 6 and Hey Dude ranked No. 7 favourite footwear brand among all teens, gaining ~30 bps and ~50 bps of mindshare Y/Y respectively
• On Running and Hoka One One were the No. 8 and No. 13 favourite footwear brands respectively for all teens, and the No. 5 and No. 3 favourite athletic footwear brands for upper income teens respectively. 

Germiston, Gauteng, SA - We’re finding trade very tricky and not good at all. Prices have become so exorbitant, and you must downgrade all the time. But people aspire to better end merchandise and brands, so you lose that segment if you’re not careful. You can’t offer copies – they know what they want. To be a player, you must be up-to-date.

To sell expensive footwear you have to offer credit. Lay bye doesn’t seem to be good enough for the premium brands. However, we do stock Palladium, and we do quite well with that, I must say.

But in general, consumers have less money, and they have more people they have to support. If they can’t afford what they really want, the business just doesn’t happen.

We have tried to modernise our business and our marketing, but if business is dead, you can’t beat it into life.

Thus far this year, we’re quite a bit down on last year, so December isn’t looking very promising. 

Durban, KZN, SA - It’s challenging. We need better political leadership and there’s no sign of that.

We’ve been in business rescue since November 2020. We were hurt before covid – by emigration, among other things. We’ve made slow progress since then, and we recently paid the first dividend to creditors.

We’ve reduced the business from 5 stores and a head office to 1 store, in the Pavilion, plus online, and we have 5 in-store staff, because we have to work the hours the Pavilion demands. 2 of those staff have been with us for 48 years. My son, Cameron, who was in the business, has also emigrated, but he still helps with some things.

We still carry a very broad range of men’s footwear, from casual and formal to comfort, sport and safety, and we specialise in small and large sizes, in most cases from 5-15, with a few size 16s as well.

On the clothing side, we still specialise in large men’s sizes, from 2x to 10x.

That has made us a destination store, including for up-country tourists, and we were hit in July when the beaches were closed.

When you’re in business rescue, you have to pay cash up front, but we still lost some brands. However, we’ve replaced them with others, and, if anything, we’ve done better with them.

December is always much better than any other month, and I expect tourism to be much better. Often, when the months leading up to Christmas have been worse than usual, Christmas itself is very good. I hope so.

For the last while, we’ve been affected by building alterations at the Pavilion, but that will be cleared up in a week. We just have to carry on! 

Wolwehoek, Free State, SA - Midland Tannery, which processes hides from the vertically integrated Midland Group’s feedlots from raw to wet blue, wet white and finished leather, “is considering its options”, GM Rudie Nieuwoudt confirmed on Friday, in response to speculation about its future.

He said a decision would be made by end October.