South Africans have been quick to take advantage of online bargains on foreign-based websites. The unseen cost is huge losses in an already crippled labour market.
Durban — Few South Africans with an online presence will still be unaware of Temu, the hugely popular digital shopping app which has launched a social media advertising blitz in the country.
Few social media or online gaming sessions end without at least one Temu ad being viewed, tempting with ridiculously low prices on clothing, technology and gadgets.
And South Africans, already used to online shopping, boosted by the need to minimise contact during the Covid pandemic and the convenience offered by all major retailers who quickly cottoned on to the home delivery service, have not been shy to test the waters.
Positive reviews have been tempered by some complaints about additional customs costs, but it appears that shoppers have largely received what they paid for, in good time.
However, as Dr Colin Thakur warns, all online shopping comes with risk, and not just the risk of being conned out of money, but your personal information being harvested for other purposes.
But the real downside, invisible to shoppers, is the cost to the country of such apps in terms of job losses.
The local fashion and textile industry, already devastated when South Africa opened its borders – and markets – to the rest of the world, simply cannot compete with garments, apparently of some quality, being offered at less than R50.
It goes without saying that the reason these items reach our shores at such low prices is the appalling employment conditions in the producing nations. Where local business must contend with minimum wages, bargaining councils and the power wielded by unions, which make disciplining and dismissing non-performing employees an onerous task, workers in other countries have no such protections and work long hours for meagre wages.
It is perhaps time the government looked to close the loopholes which allow these cheap imports and protected local business. With one of the worst unemployment rates in the world, and an at-best stagnant economy, South Africa cannot afford to lose any more jobs, even at the cost of a bargain.
Independent on Saturday