Fast Fashion Taking on South Africa
Fast fashion is a term that is being used more and more due to the prevalence of quick-production clothing manufacturers, distributers and e-tailers that look to produce inexpensive clothing en-masse rapidly to keep up with seasons and trends. The clothing and accessories are stylish and often ‘dupes’ or look alikes of designer clothes inspired by the runways. With innovations around supply chain management, the production process moves quickly from research and design to production, rollout and shipping. Due to this, new lines and collections are continuously in production and in circulation, therefore feeding consumer demand while creating more – especially due to the generally budget-friendly nature of fast fashion. Initially two of the biggest fast fashion retailers were Zara and H&M, which provided consumers with both an online ecommerce store as well as bricks and mortar versions too, therefore making their clothing super accessible to the masses. If something sounds too good to be true, it generally is. And that’s exactly the case with fast fashion clothing.
The rapidity of the current fast fashion production process is at such a scale that it outweighs the consumer demand. H&M and Zara no longer hold the monopoly in the fast fashion space though – with the likes of Shein, Temu, BooHoo, ASOS, PrettyLittleThing and Fashion Nova becoming bigger players in the global ecommerce space. Locally Shein and Temu have taken over and local retailers and e-tailers aren’t happy, understandably. Shein first hit South African shores in 2020, and since then has garnered around 250,000 South African shoppers according to the Marketing All Product Survey, solidifying its popularity despite the import duties and challenges that bringing in parcels like these incur. Temu, which opened up its ecommerce doors to South Africans in January 2024, has already become a prominent player with many influencers seen endorsing the retail giants.
That being said, that is about to change for South Africans – Shein and Temu orders will incur higher import taxes from July 2024. According to The Foshini Croup (TFG) CEO Anthony Thunström, the South African Revenue Service “has committed to tax all clothing parcels with an import duty of 45% plus VAT from 1 July 2024.” This will particularly be applied to orders below a value of R500. This effectively looks to negate the current tax loophole that Shein and Temu shoppers have managed to take advantage of up until now. The hope is that this will assist local retailers and encourage better shopping habits from consumers.
One of the biggest issues around fast fashion is the overwhelming environmental impact, which is inherently negative. Most of the clothing is not made to last, and the excess ends up in landfills. It is estimated by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) that fast fashion production accounts for at least 10% of the annual global carbon emissions. Outside of the environmental considerations, are the ethical considerations too. The low-cost of nature of the clothing necessitates that the cost of labour behind the clothing production is extremely low too. It is estimated that approximately 75 million employees worldwide contribute to the production of fast fashion goods, but only a shocking two percent of them earn an actual living wage.