S&V Weekly Newsletter Vol.11 No.1, January 6 2025

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Back-to-school: Retailers report good start

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.

Italian footwear exports dropped in first 9 months last year

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.

They Said It

A couple of reactions to the last 2 newsletters.

"Are you bored? Sending newsletters when everyone is suntanning and/or on holiday?" - Hugo Zuanni, Leather Link, Cape Town, W. Cape, SA.

"Go on holiday!" - An unsigned email from The Courteney Boot Company, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

Got anything you'd like to share?

Do you have any suggestions, comments or experiences about the industry that you'd like to share with the industry? - tony@svmag.co.za

New subscribers last week

Hanieh Taghavi, Foreign Trade Expert, Rock Chemie, Iran

Birthdays this week

06/01/1947: Allan Harris, Woodheads, Cape Town, W. Cape, SA.
06/01/1968: Gavin Kisten Pillay, Topline Manufacturers, Durban, KZN, SA.
06/01/1970: Neville Walters, ACA Thread, Cape Town, W. Cape, SA.
06/01/1976: Michael Gounden, Michelle Footwear, Durban, KZN, SA.
07/01/1941: Dieter Zettler, retired, formerly PMC group, Pinetown, KZN, SA.
07/01/1977: Hannelie Scholtz, Fabulous Fashions, Vryburg, N.W. Province, SA.
07/01/1970: Ingo Fleischer, Johnson Controls SA, Uitenhage, E. Cape, SA.
08/01/1944: Kishor Mistry, Shoe Junxion, Sasolburg, Free State, SA.
08/01/1972: Imtiaz Butler, agent, Durban, KZN, SA.
09/01/1962: Ming-Ter Tso, Mingfay International Trade, Johannesburg, Gauteng, SA.
09/01/1987: Nazia Parsad, On Q Trend Online Store, Pietermaritzburg, KZN, SA.
10/01/1947: Pieter de Villiers, Shoes & Do’s, Pretoria, Gauteng, SA.
10/01/1955: HR Hassim, Suliman Jooma & Son, Pretoria, Gauteng, SA.
10/01/1980: Edward Althorpe, commission agent, East London, E. Cape, SA.
10/01/1982: Arnold Britten, Zambezi Tanners, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
11/01/1954: Dilip Merchant, Merchant’s Outfitters, Port Elizabeth, E. Cape, SA.
11/01/1958: Michael Prinsloo, Shoelettes, Cape Town, W. Cape, SA.
12/01/1954: Dave Nagle, agent, Port Elizabeth, E. Cape, SA.
12/01/1957: Melanie Thompson, Little Slipper Co., Port Elizabeth, E. Cape, SA.
12/01/1963: Anton de Wet, Intershu, Cape Town, W. Cape, SA.
12/01/1969: Lenny Moodley, The Little Slipper Co., Port Elizabeth, E. Cape, SA.

In memoriam this week

06/01/2000: Alan Palmer (b. 02/09/1946), Medicus, Port Elizabeth, E. Cape, SA.
06/01/2010: Minty Kock (b. 15/06/1950), Meroda Footwear [closed], Cape Town, W. Cape, SA.
07/01/2010: Danie Du Toit (b. 22/02/1948), Carca Footwear [closed], Lesotho.
07/01/2015: Rob Thompson (b. 06/08/1948), agent, Johannesburg, Gauteng, SA.
09/01/2021: Elaine Coy (b. 30/10/1951), Afro Leather, Johannesburg, Gauteng, SA.
09/01/2022: Ron MacNiven (b. 24/09/1944), Bata Zimbabwe, Decofurn, Durban, KZN, SA.
09/01/2023: Anthony Pearce (b. 31/05/1954), Woods Tanning, Uitenhage, E. Cape, SA. Formerly Swartland Tanning and Gringo Leather.

Have you let us know about your birthday, or the birthdays of your colleagues? Our readers love this section, so please become part of it. This also applies to the In Memoriam section. Help us remember former colleagues.

Directory entries updated last week

Ekspa and Adno’s [Ekspa Fabrikante (Pty) Ltd], Benoni, Gauteng, SA.
Luggage Centre, Newcastle, KZN, SA.

3. Malawian Kwacha (MWK) (buying)

Source: https://www.rbm.mw/

4. Zambian Kwacha (ZMW) (buying)

Source: https://www.boz.zm/

5. Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG)

Source: Source: https://www.rbz.co.zw/

Note: For previous rates, see HERE

ABSA Agri Trends: Hides & skins prices

No hide prices for 2025 yet.

Note: For previous prices, see HERE

Have a look at these links

We invite businesses to send us links to websites, Facebook pages and the like which they feel would be of interest to others. The links below are from our database:

Skoenland, Vredendal, W. Cape, SA. Women’s footwear retailer.
LA Group, Johannesburg, Gauteng, SA. Distributor.

THIS WEEK LAST YEAR!

Back-to-school: Later inland schools re-opening means slower start for sales

READ IT HERE - S&V Weekly Newsletter Vol.10 No.02, January 8 2024

THIS WEEK FIVE YEARS AGO!!

Retail last week: A mixed bag

Billabong merged into Boardriders' Durban office

FMD: Quarantine still in place warning

READ IT HERE - S&V Weekly Newsletter Vol.6 No.01, January 7, 2020

Contact us

News & Classifieds: Tony Dickson, +27 (0)31 209 7505, tony@svmag.co.za

Next newsletter: Monday 13 January, 2025. Ad and editorial deadline Friday 10 January.

SAFLIA enquiries: Tel 0800SAFLIA * Email info@saflia.co.za * Website http://www.saflia.co.za

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