Noxolo Miya
Pretoria - After being rejected by big institutions that are said to fund the businesses of young people and SMMEs in the country, Rearabetswe Dire and Gontse Kgokolo have opened their first shop in Menlyn.
The two young women collaborated to create a business space for South African products, taking it upon themselves to self-fund a South African retail company that specialises in local beauty and grooming products.
Both hold a number of qualifications. Dire obtained her Master’s degree in chemical engineering and specialising in the spheroidisation of metal alloys and its economics, while Kgokolo holds an Honours degree in consumer science, majoring in strategic and business management.
In 2021 they realised that the lack of financial support would not deter them from achieving their goals and helping other SMMEs in the country.
They decided to change the status quo and opened their shop “Edenvinne”, which currently has 45 different South African brands listed in-store and more than 400 variants of products.
Bold X brands, which is owned by Dire, went through a series of vetting steps, but she was told that the perfume market was competitive and retailers could not take on the brand.
Kgokolo launched KwaneleSA, a hair cosmetics brand that was rejected by one of South Africa’s biggest retailers after they wanted her to “remove the black lady which was on the packaging because it didn’t make sense as most hair straighteners for that retailer depicted white women only,” said Kgokolo.
The two women got together in 2021 and opened the Menlyn mall pop-up market, after extensive discussions about the problems they had both encountered with some of the big retailers.
“We were rejected by big corporations and many other SMMEs. Most SMMEs that operate in the cosmetics industry want to expand their customer reach and the best possible way to do that is to go into retail stores where consumers have the opportunity to physically interact with the products.
“We then formed Edenvinne, which could be a safe haven for all South African brands which were denied entry into the cosmetics retail market by big corporations that prefer to house international brands,” said Dire.
“Unlike big corporations, we don’t squeeze SMMEs on pricing, which results in them dropping their quality of products. We actively partake in the #BuyLocal campaign.
“Most consumers use international brands which are at big cosmetics retail chain stores because they are easily accessible and readily available to purchase. Unlike when purchasing SMME products, consumers need to purchase from various brands and pay shipping on all these orders. Edenvinne has a solution for this: A one stop where consumers can purchase local brands and pay one shipping cost.”
Edenvinne is an active advocate of the #BuyLocal campaign.
Pretoria News