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EDGARS Stores is eyeing exporting its recently-launched men’s casual clothing label, Quote, to South Africa following its acceptance on the local market.The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange listed firm in February this year launched Quote, a men’s clothing brand, as part of initiatives to drive its sales volumes.
Edgars Stores sales and marketing executive Peter Munyama told New Ziana the planned move followed success of the label in Zimbabwe.
“We’re trying to get the fabric in Tanzania so that we can be able to sell clothing in the huge South African market,” he said.
Although their products can compete with any other in the region, Edgars Zimbabwe cannot penetrate the huge South African market because of a bilateral trade agreement between Zimbabwe and its southern neighbour.
Zimbabwe has preferential access on clothing to most parts of the world on a single transformation basis.
This means that manufacturing of the garment must occur in Zimbabwe, but the fabric can originate from anywhere.
But there are restrictive Rules of Origin in the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) region which maintain a double transformation rule on clothing.
This means in order to participate in preferential access, clothing must not only be manufactured within Zimbabwe, but it must also be manufactured from fabric which was manufactured within Sadc, to enjoy duty-free access to regional markets, or pricing for Zimbabwean products will remain uncompetitive.
Sadc governments have been seeking to relax this rule through request for waivers.
Munyama said the number of retail partners selling the Quote brand locally had doubled since its launch.
The services of five retailers among them, Topics, Barons and Raffles were enlisted to push the label into the market at its launch.
Munyama added: “From the five retail partners we started with, we have now doubled to 10. These include Ceembe, Five Kings, to mention but a few.
“A couple of indigenous partners have also come on board to retail the Quote clothing line.”
Munyama said Edgars was currently selling summer wear of the Quote men’s designer clothes and demand was already high.
“We launched the brand in February and then we were selling winter wear until this June. The summer range sales have already out-competed the winter clothing by 44 percent,” he said. — New Ziana
Online Reporter