The Retailer Liaison Committee (RLC) released its Market Sales Report for August 2024. Its members accounted for 61.8% of SA clothing sales.
Apparel, home and beauty sales grew by 9.5% y-y in August (July: 2.8% y-y), with 6-month rolling growth of 2.5% y-y and 12-month rolling growth of 3.5% y-y.
The strong sales growth for the RLC in August was driven by the continued momentum in womenswear (+10.6% y-y) and the strong recovery of the menswear category (+11.4% y-y).
Homeware sales growth also rebounded by 11.8% y-y in August 2024 from a contraction of -0.1% y-y in July 2024.
Total RLC volumes grew by 2.4% in August 2024 which was higher than the 0.8% achieved in July 2024. Strong volume growth in womenswear (+10.0% y-y) and menswear (+7.4% y-y) were offset by kids and baby (-4.7% y-y) and beauty (-11.0% y-y).
Product inflation surged from 2.0% in July 2024 to 7.0% in August.
The average unit price for the RLC was 78 in August 2024 (compared to R114.79 in August 2023), with the average price in all categories increasing for August.