ings should cost. “The alternative options are cheaper and always available, so brands must build a defensive strategy around quality for their price point, clearly articulating why their product is worth more,” he said. Retailers are operating under an unbalanced rulebook. Import taxes, labor laws and shipping costs inflate the baseline price of doing business. Global marketplaces bypass many of those costs, leveraging scale and logistics networks that make the impossible seem effortless. To a consumer scrolling on their phone, the context disappears: a $12 dress is a $12 dress. Temu and Shein excel at collapsing friction. Their strength is in affordable products, but also in the dopamine of discovery or the micro-gratification of “arriving soon”. Amazon, meanwhile, has re-engineered convenience itself, teaching customers that two days is too long and next-day delivery should be a common expectation. Local retailers, burdened by regulation and distance, can’t easily match that promise. However, they can reimagine what value feels like. “Ultimately, customers buy value, not just low prices,” added Salakas. “That value equation combines price, quality, brand trust and experience.” The challenge for players is to make that equation visible and to help shoppers feel that paying more buys them confidence. Competing with convenience Outrage at ultra-cheap platforms is expected. Their labour practices, environmental impact and lack of transparency are deemed legitimate concerns. Yet, simply condemning them won’t make them disappear or solve the structural challenges facing local retail. Roy Morgan estimates Temu’s annual sales in Australia alone have climbed to around $2.6 billion in FY2025, while Shein’s have reached roughly $1.3 billion. Despite that, Bain & Company data shows Chinese retailers still hold just 8 per cent of the country’s e-commerce market, a sign that local players can compete if they adapt quickly and lean into their strengths. Tightening global regulation, entrenched incumbents and consumer habits that still favour in-store discovery continue to temper these global players’ otherwise rapid rise. Local retailers can’t out-discount or out-scale global disruptors, but they can out-ethic, out-innovate and out-connect them. Fighting scale with scale is futile, and the retailers who will endure aren’t the biggest, but the most adaptable. “At The Party People, we helped customers have great parties,” Salakas recalled. “Competitors focused on selling party products.” That difference between enabling an experience and moving inventory is therefore the thin line between survival and irrelevance. Retailers may resort to looking beyond loyalty programs and instead asking themselves what friction they can remove from people’s lives. That could constitute same-day delivery, emotional shorthand of trusted service, curated ranges or repairability. Why outrage misses the point There’s a temptation to treat global entrants as existential threats or destroyers of local business, culture and ethics. Yet the consumer who fills a Temu cart is often the same consumer who buys from local boutiques. The difference may simply be a matter of mood, not morality. For many categories, particularly fast-turnover goods, the products often originate from similar manufacturers that supply local wholesalers. Unless a retailer trades on sustainability, craftsmanship or local provenance, it could be disingenuous to claim moral high ground. The democratisation of access, even through questionable channels, has always been part of retail’s evolution. From catalog orders to department stores to e-commerce, every wave of convenience once looked like a threat. The truth may be that Shein and Temu are teaching consumers what “effortless” really means, and learning from global platforms doesn’t mean emulating their shortcuts. The lesson isn’t to imitate them, but to learn from their clarity, which comprises simple interfaces, constant novelty and psychological proximity. A new resilience “Range decisions are strategic storytelling,” Salakas said. During Oktoberfest, his team stocked over 100 SKUs, many of which were slow movers, because the breadth told a story. “Without them, the range wouldn’t feel complete.” That example of choosing a product to create a narrative rather than a spreadsheet outcome is how physical stores can reclaim meaning. When everything online is ever expanding, finitude is deemed a luxury. Supply-chain agility is the next test. The AI explosion, which is scaling faster than any technological revolution before it, is showing how quickly retail cycles are now turning. Retailers that cling to seasonal calendars risk obsolescence. But brands that prototype, test and pivot in weeks can thrive. As Salakas put it, “It’s not the biggest retailers that win. It’s the most adaptable.” Global entrants benefit from tax loopholes, low-cost labour and vast fulfilment infrastructures that local independents can’t replicate. The real change may come from fairer taxes, simpler imports, and support for local and sustainable production. Until then, adaptation is the only viable defence. Retailers who integrate marketplaces and sell through Amazon, or those who embrace drop-ship partnerships, can leverage the same infrastructure that threatens them. Collaboration may not define their brand, but it can strengthen its survival. Every era of retail disruption has forced introspection. The question now shouldn’t be how retailers can compete with Amazon, Temu, or Shein, but what these global disruptors reveal about them. They expose a consumer desire for speed, transparency, and an abundance of desires that local retailers can reinterpret with ethics and intimacy. It is that intersection where convenience meets conscience that the future of retail lies. Further reading: Shein and Temu outpace global retail giants in South Africa’s fashion market