Tag Archives: South Africa

One of South Africa’s biggest retailers buying hundreds more stores

August 12, 2025Latest Newsacquisition of hundred retail stores, Pepkor, South AfricaAdmin

The Competition Commission has recommended that the Competition Tribunal approve retail giant Pepkor’s acquisition of hundreds of retail stores in South Africa, including Legit, Swagga, Style and Boardmans.

The brands are all under Retailablity, which is a privately owned retail group that offers affordable apparel and lifestyle products across several retail brands in South Africa, including Edgars.

The businesses to be acquired operate 462 stores across South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Eswatini.

However, the Edgars, Edgars Beauty, Red Square, Kelso and Keedo businesses are not included in the transaction and will continue to be operated by Retailability.

According to the commission, Pepkor Holdings has four operating segments, but only two are relevant to the proposed transaction.

These are the clothing and general merchandise segments, including all clothing, footwear and homeware (CFH) retail brands under Pepkor Speciality and the furniture, appliances and electronics segment under Pepkor Lifestyle.

The Target Businesses’ activities in South Africa are as follows:

Legit sells ladies’ fashion/apparel and various beauty products.
Swagga consists of Swagga/Beaver Canoe stores that sell apparel for men and boys.
Style sells men’s and women’s contemporary and formal fashion wear, as well as kids’ clothing and cellular products.
Boardmans consists of an online-only store selling appliances and homeware products.

The commission said the proposed transaction is unlikely to substantially lessen or prevent competition in any market.

However, to address public interest concerns, Pepkor will employ the employees on terms and conditions that are no less favourable than the current employment terms and conditions.

In addition, the retail brands won’t retrench any employees because of the merger.

Lastly, Pepkor has also undertaken to maintain or increase the proportion of local procurement from small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and providers that are owned by historically disadvantaged persons (HDPs).

Scaling up

The acquisitions align with Pepkor’s strategy to scale up its operations in South Africa.

The group is already the largest clothing retailer in the country. It operates over 5,800 stores across 10 African countries.

The acquired businesses will be incorporated into the Pepkor Speciality business unit, which already houses Tekkie Town, Shoe City, Dunns, Refinery, CODE, SPCC and Ayana.

Pepkor’s Speciality total store base has 941 stores across South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Eswatini.

Earlier this year, the group said the transaction will add scale to Pepkor Speciality and expand its product offering in the adult market, especially in womenswear through the Legit brand.

“The acquisition of Swagga and Style has strong synergistic benefits, expanding the group’s store
portfolio and providing the opportunity to further grow the group’s share in the adult wear market.”

“The Boardmans online brand, which operates in the homeware product segment, will become part of the Pepkor Lifestyle business,” said the group.

It was previously noted that the total purchase consideration payable on the closing of the sale will represent less than 2% of Pepkor’s R96 billion market cap.

The purchase consideration will be settled in cash, it said.

News Credits:- BUSINESS TECH

Shein and Temu outpace global retail giants in South Africa’s fashion market

August 6, 2025Latest Newsglobal retail giants, Shein, South Africa, TemuAdmin

China-founded e-commerce retailers Shein and Temu have captured a combined 3.6% share of South Africa’s retail, clothing, textile, footwear and leather (CTFL) market, accounting for 7.3 billion rand ($405 million) in sales in 2024, a report showed on Tuesday.

Shein entered the market in 2020, followed by Temu in 2024. Both have disrupted the local retail landscape through aggressive pricing, strategic marketing, and using tax loopholes that initially gave them a competitive edge over local retailers.

Their appeal to price-sensitive consumers has impacted local retailers, who urged regulators last year to close the tax loophole, which eventually ended last year.

The Localisation Support Fund (LSF) report found that domestic retailers’ market share of CTFL declined from 75.3% in 2011 to 74% in 2024. Meanwhile, international brick-and-mortar brands like H&M (HMb.ST), opens new tab, Zara (ITX.MC), opens new tab, and Cotton On hold a combined 3.4% share.

Shein and Temu now command a combined 3.6% share of the CTFL market, and 37.1% of South Africa’s e-commerce CTFL market, with Shein alone accounting for 28% of online ladies’ CTFL sales.

“Those (international)retailers have acquired this market share over a period of 13 years, and Shein and Temu have managed to match and surpass this in just a five-year period,” said Sean Mercer, principal consultant at consulting firm BMA.

($1 = 18.0270 rand)

Author Credits:- Siyanda Mthethwa
Reuters

Pepkor’s fashion chain Ayana aims for hundreds of stores in South Africa

May 29, 2025Latest NewsAyana and hundred stores, Pepkor fashion chain, South AfricaAdmin

Recently launched fashion chain Ayana could have hundreds of stores, the CEO of its owner Pepkor told Reuters, as the South African retailer targets trendier customers and embraces the fast-fashion model of some rivals.

Pepkor, the owner of the budget Pep and Ackermans clothing chains, is underrepresented in the adult clothing market, especially womenswear. Recently, it expanded into that market by acquiring fashion businesses such as Legit, Style, and Swagga.

It launched 32 Ayana stores in February by converting discontinued Ackermans womenswear stores. The brand is more fashionable than Pepkor’s core chains and aims to refresh its ranges more frequently, with some shoppers comparing its style and store layout to Inditex-owned Zara.

“This is not like a thousand-store chain. It will be, I suppose, a couple of hundred if it’s really successful, maybe two or three hundred,” Pieter Erasmus, chief executive officer of Pepkor, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Ayana targets fashion-conscious young women with its waistcoats, bow mini dresses, and collarless jackets, “but at a price which is affordable,” Erasmus added, compared to international brands like H&M.

“Customers have responded well in the store, in sales, but also on social media. So we think that there’s an opportunity for this brand in South Africa to do, again, I don’t like using this word ‘Zara-type’ aspirational (fashion),” he said.

He added that Ayana was also trying to tap customers who “are currently buying from some Chinese (retailers like) Shein. There’s an opportunity to really address that. So we’re going to put a big effort into it.”

Online-only retailers Shein and Temu have grown rapidly by shipping inexpensive products directly to consumers, forcing local retailers to find new ways of differentiating themselves.

Ayana currently sources its stock from Asia, particularly China, and locally in order to respond faster to changing trends, Erasmus said.

($1 = 17.9112 rand)

News Credits- FASHION NETWORK