Bulawayo’s city centre, like other Zimbabwean cities, is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation where established retailers and high-end shops,which once anchored the formal economy are shutting down, resulting in the space they were taking being subdivided and rented to clusters of small informal traders. In these same spaces where brands like Haddon & Sly, Edgars, Woolworths and Topics once sold regulated, locally supplied high-value goods, shelves are now packed with cheap, often counterfeit products, many of them smuggled into the country and sold at low prices. The rapid spread of informal shops is not merely a change in the retail landscape; it is a visible symptom of deeper economic distress bedevilling the country.
As formal businesses close under the pressure of rising costs, shrinking demand and unfair competition, an underground market sustained by smuggling and illicit financial flows is filling the vacuum, further undermining Bulawayo’s struggling industries and accelerating de-industrialisation and unemployment. Bulawayo has long been regarded as Zimbabwe’s industrial hub. It was home to textile manufacturers, food processors, metal fabricators and clothing factories.
But industry leaders say the playing field has become dangerously uneven, threatening the survival and vibrancy of the city. Local manufacturers are competing against counterfeit detergents, clothing, electronics, cosmetics and food products that enter the market at a fraction of the cost of legitimate goods and most of these products are sold in the small shops located around 6thAvenue. Many of the products are smuggled through porous borders or disguised through trade misinvoicing, allowing importers to evade customs duty VAT and income tax.
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Some business premises across Bulawayo are also selling low-cost imports from China, contributing to the surge in illicit trade. Large formal retailers, burdened by rent, wages and taxes, are losing customers to informal shops selling cheap goods. Just like the once prestigious Haddon & Sly, opposite the City Hall, the shop has now been partitioned to smaller informal traders spaces symbolising a broader erosion of formal retail, where established businesses are slowly being crowded out by an informal economy sustained by smuggling, cheap products and counterfeits. Established brands such as OK Zimbabwe have closed outlets and scaled down operations countrywide, unable to compete with the growing network of informal traders.
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