adminthings are considerably cheaper.
Any Zimbabwean shopper will confess that South Africa has been the destination of choice for quite some time. For many because it presented Zimbabweans with the only decent avenue for acquiring good clothing, basic groceries and even furniture and electrical gadgets at reasonable prices over the past few years.
Zimbabweans for a while had become big spenders in South Africa where they would buy everything from blankets to rice and washing powder. For many trendy people clothes could only be decent if they had been brought in from South Africa.
Do I not remember those days when we shopped in South Africa’s malls like we had lost our marbles?
We used to just walk through shops picking things off the rails in haste and rushing to the till to pay. Upon seeing the thousands of rand coming out of our wallets, many a salesgirl would ask the question, where are you from?
To them it was quite obvious that anyone spending so much cash on shopping had to be a foreigner. Locals that side normally use cards and they conduct their business at a leisurely pace, which most Zimbabweans do not as time will not be on their side.
Other salegirls were already familiar with the Shona language, common in this part of the country and would quickly nod: “You are from Zimbabwe ne,” they would say with a smile.
In fact, many Zimbabweans used to bump into each other in Polokwane and other SA towns shopping. You would just hear snatches of Shona and know that you were not alone. Back then when we bought even bath towels and toilet paper from SA.
Zimbabweans had become the cash cow in SA, but can you blame them when prices in the country had gone mad?
Back then the exchange rate for the US dollar to the rand was so favourable at US$1 to R10. With US$100 a Zimbabwean shopper would have R1 000 for shopping. That money was enough to buy a small freezer in Messina or loads of groceries at the factory shop or Jumbo in Polokwane.
Here in Zimbabwe it would buy a heater or two items period. Business people must have been fleecing the public in those days because the same products now cost less. Unless something that we ordinary people cannot recognise has changed.
Zimbabweans would bring in refrigerators, beds, clothes, washing machines, plasma TVs back then. They would go into the Forchinis, Legit, Jet, Prato, Game, Hi Fi of South Africa and shop themselves flat.
You just had to look at the volume of cars and buses coming into Zimbabwe from South Africa loaded with stuff in those days. There was actually a group of people who were no longer buying anything locally as prices here were simply crazy.
Those were the days, however, they are gone and gone forever.
I had the misfortune of going into South Africa recently. I say misfortune because life has suddenly become uncomfortable for the Zimbabwean down South even though the country still retains its beauty which I enjoy seeing every time I go there.
While I used to be one of those who would shop until I felt like dropping when in SA (this being a weakness from my early 20s when my first paycheck was just way too much for any young girl’s expectations) on my recent visit I had to admit that things have changed. I found myself holding back on my cash.
The US dollar to rand exchange rate has become painful for a Zimbabwean shopper, I tell you. I don’t know how the South Africans themselves are faring. If you think back to the days of the US$1 to R10 rate and then you find yourself faced with an exchange rate of US$1 to R6,4 or R6,5 you will be devastated. Where US$500 would shop you lots and lots of bargains when converted to rand, and you suddenly realise that it has become nothing much, you begin to wonder.
It becomes worse when you prefer shopping in the exclusive or big shops where an outfit can cost as much as R400 to R700. Simple mathematics will show that this kind of price is roughly the same with what our Truworths and others are charging in US here at home.
Where the KFC and Debonairs used to be something special and cheap, you suddenly realise that buying our own Chicken Inn and Chicken Slice is just the same if not cheaper once you convert to the rand.
Then you begin to wonder if it is not better to stay local.
I began to feel it no longer makes sense to go into South Africa and other countries for just shopping. If you happen to go there for business reasons and then do a bit of shopping maybe that makes sense.
If you actually go there for buying to sell, then it may make sense especially if you are going into the deep, dark corners where you get bargains and sales and “zhing zhongs” which you come back with to Zimbabwe
and sell at double the price. Otherwise there is need to think really hard because when you factor in transport and accommodation you realise you are spending a lot of money.
It truly is not funny to first calculate how much something would cost in US dollar each time you want to pick on any item, which is what I found myself doing. Except for a few items such as baby and children’s wear which I think Zimbabwe is lagging behind in, some of these things I truly begin to think should be bought locally.
If you add in the hardships that people will go through such as not sleeping but just getting off the bus at Park Station and rushing to shop and then heading straight back to Park Station to catch another bus back home to Zimbabwe and then the hassles at the border.
It is not all bad, however. There are still several advantages to buying in SA. For starters there is better quality in almost everything from clothing to spare parts. Here we have too many fakes and imitations and that is something we need to address.
There is real need to boost local manufacturing. If you see the amount of money we spend outside, you can see that Zimbabweans have the potential to pour money into the local economy and see it grow.
So it is right now while the exchange rate is biting people that the business community needs to shape up and give us quality goods at affordable prices so we totally revert to local.
Online Reporter