The Retailer Liaison Committee (RLC) released its Market Sales Report for May 2026. Its members’ SA sales accounted for 45.3% of total SA clothing sales.
Total Apparel, Homeware and Beauty sales grew 3.7% y-y in May (April: 1.4% y-y), with a 6-month rolling growth of 3.1% y-y and a 12-month rolling sales growth slowing to 2.5% y-y.
Total SA sales grew 3.4% y-y in May, while Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia & eSwatini (BLNE) sales accelerated 7.2% y-y. The Rest of Africa sales grew 2.9% y-y (April: 0.0% y-y).
Apparel sales grew 3.3% y-y in May. Womenswear sales grew 4.4% y-y, with Menswear sales up
8% y-y. Kids & Baby sales recovered marginally to 1.3% y-y.
Beauty sales experienced a significant slowdown to 4.0% y-y in May (April: 9.6% y-y). This was likely due to surging inflation of 15.2%, and Beauty volumes falling 9.7% y-y.
Homeware sales grew 5.6% y-y in May (April: 7.5% y-y).
Total volumes grew 2.1% y-y in May (April: -1.0% y-y).
Product inflation cooled to 1.6% for May (April: 2.5%).
The average unit price for the RLC was 05 in May (compared to R132.97 in May 2025).