The old saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger certainly applies to many of SA’s retailers. Over the past few years, they have been assailed by high interest rates, load-shedding, port congestion, unfair online competition and an economy that’s been going nowhere slowly.

There have been casualties along the way, most notably Edcon a few years back. But most have come through the storm, making plans to deal with the crises that have affected them. And at long last there appears to be a hint of the sunlit uplands ahead, with load-shedding decreasing in intensity and frequency, interest rates looking as if they may start falling later this year and the SA Revenue Service (Sars) starting to apply VAT and import duties on products from online retailers such as Shein and Temu...

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