Bringing your beauty brand to South Africa

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What distribution here actually involves, who the buyers are, and what you need ready before you start.

South Africa is a market of roughly 60 million people with a concentrated, world class beauty retail sector. For an international brand it is one of the more straightforward African markets to enter, because a small number of national retail groups control most of the shelf space and they are actively looking for new brands. The difficulty is not finding the market. It is winning a listing, holding it, and servicing it properly once you have it.

This page sets out what that involves. RTSC has been doing it since 2015.

What a South African distributor actually does

Importing is the smallest part of the job. A distributor here takes on:

• Retail listings. Pitching your brand to the buying teams at each retail group, negotiating the listing, and agreeing the range and the price architecture.
• Import and clearing. Freight, customs, duties, and holding stock in a local warehouse.
• Stock and forecasting. Holding enough cover that a retailer never goes out of stock, which is the fastest way to lose a listing.
• Pricing and margin. Setting a recommended retail price that works for the retailer, for you, and for the local consumer at the same time.
• In-store execution. Merchandising, planogram compliance, promotional calendars, and the trade spend that goes with them.
• Marketing and PR. Local press, retailer co-op marketing, influencer seeding and sampling.
• Aftercare. Returns, damages, short-dated stock and consumer queries.
• Local presence. Setting up a local website and social media accounts for the brand in South Africa.

A brand that appoints a distributor expecting only the first two of those tends not to last.

Who the buyers actually are

South African beauty retail is concentrated, and a brand needs a view on four distinct channels.

• Pharmacy-led beauty. Clicks is the dominant player, with Dis-Chem alongside it. High footfall, price sensitive, and the route to mass reach.
• Fashion retail beauty. Woolworths, Truworths and TFG, where the beauty offer sits inside a clothing business and trades on curation rather than range. Bash is TFG's online platform.
• Pure e-commerce. Takealot and Superbalist, and Amazon since its South African launch. Faster to list than physical retail, and increasingly where a brand is discovered first.
• Specialist skincare online. Skinmiles and SkinCoLAB. Smaller in volume but influential, and often where an ingredient-led or clinical brand builds credibility before it reaches mass retail.

Each has its own buying calendar, margin expectation and listing process. A brand rarely enters all four at once, and choosing the order is most of the strategy.

What the regulations actually require

This is where international brands are most often misinformed, usually by being told that South Africa works like the EU, or that a product must be registered before it can be sold. Neither is true.

• There is no pre-market registration or notification for ordinary cosmetics in South Africa. You do not file a dossier and wait for approval before selling.
• Cosmetics fall under the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act 54 of 1972, administered by the National Department of Health.
• SAHPRA does not regulate ordinary cosmetics. It is very widely assumed to, including by people advising on market entry. SAHPRA's mandate covers medicines and health products, so it becomes relevant only where a product crosses into a medicinal or borderline claim.
• The Regulations Relating to the Labelling, Advertising and Composition of Cosmetics were published in draft in 2016 and revised in 2017. They have never been finalised or brought into force.
• The CTFA Cosmetic Compendium, maintained by the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association of South Africa and aligned to EU Regulation 1223/2009, is voluntary industry guidance rather than law.
• Labelling must be in English, legible and indelible, in line with SANS 289 and the CTFA guidance.

The practical consequence is the opposite of what most brands expect. The regulatory barrier to entry is low. The retailer barrier is high, because the major retail groups apply the CTFA standard as a condition of listing whether or not the state enforces it. In commercial terms that makes voluntary guidance close to binding.

What you need ready before you approach anyone

• Your own brand deck and product catalogues, before you approach us
• Full ingredient lists in INCI format
• Safety assessments, or the equivalent from your home market
• Artwork files, and a view on whether local overlabelling is acceptable to you
• Ex-works price list, from this we will supply a recommended retail price, taking into account the margin required for RTSC and our retailers
• Minimum order quantities and lead times from your factory
• Shelf life and batch coding
• Any certifications you trade on: vegan, cruelty free, dermatologically tested - This also helps when pitching and marketing.
• High resolution imagery and any video assets
• A clear position on whether you are offering exclusive or non-exclusive distribution, and for which territory

How long it takes

Initial discussions can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, depending on how busy everyone is. Once we've agreed on the ranges for the South African market, brand decks and catalogues come together in one to two weeks.

Pitching to the right buyers is the part that varies most - a few weeks to a few months, depending on how interested the retailer is, how busy they are, the time of year, the size of the brand, and how badly they want it.

Online stores can usually load and start ordering within two weeks. Physical stores take longer, since they need to find shelf space - and often have to exit another brand to make room for yours.

Once an order is placed, airfreight takes about two weeks on average, or up to eight weeks by sea depending on where it's shipped from. From there, getting stock out to customers takes just a few days. All told, most brands are live and trading within three to four months - though every journey is a little different.

Working with RTSC

RTSC was founded in 2015 by Camille Fletcher, who has now spent more than 22 years in the fashion and beauty retail world in South Africa and internationally. We distribute Pixi Beauty, NIP+FAB, frank body, Sel:pH Beauty and Sungboon Editor into Clicks, Woolworths, Truworths, TFG and Bash, Superbalist, Takealot, Amazon, Skinmiles and SkinCoLAB.

We are deliberately selective. We take on a small number of brands and work as an extension of the brand owner's own team rather than adding a line to a wholesale list.

If you are weighing up South Africa, we are happy to have the conversation early, including where the honest responses.

Talk to Nick Hunt: nick@rtsc.co.za, +27 76 746 6008