How to sell online in South Africa
What it actually takes to start selling: the four ways to do it compared on cost and effort, when you have to register for VAT, and what you need before your first order.
Last updated: 23 September 2026
Written by Liam Daries
The short answer
You can be selling online in South Africa within a day, and you do not need a registered company, a website or a card machine to start. What you do need is something to sell, a bank account to be paid into, and a way for a customer to pay you that does not involve them trusting a screenshot of your banking details.
The real decision is not whether to sell online. It is which of four routes you take, because they differ enormously in what they cost you before you have made a single sale.
The four ways to do it, compared
Almost everybody selling online in South Africa is doing one of these four things. They are not equally good, and which one suits you depends almost entirely on how much you are willing to spend before you know whether it works.
| Route | Costs before your first sale | Who finds you | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instagram or WhatsApp | Nothing | People who already follow you | No stock tracking, no order history, and you are chasing proof of payment by DM. It works until it is three orders a day. |
| Your own website | Hosting, a domain, a theme, and usually a monthly platform fee | Nobody, until you market it | You are paying every month whether or not you sell, and the traffic problem is entirely yours. |
| A market stall alone | Stall fee, stock, your Saturday | Whoever walks past | Real foot traffic, but it stops the moment you pack up, and nothing you built carries over to next weekend. |
| A marketplace | Typically nothing — a commission on what sells | People browsing the marketplace itself | You give up a cut of each sale, and you are one of many sellers rather than the only one. |
The honest summary: if you have an audience already, selling through social media costs nothing and you should start there. If you do not, a marketplace gets you in front of people without a monthly bill, and your own website is the thing you build once you know what sells.
Do you need a registered company?
No. You can trade as a sole proprietor under your own name, and a great many small businesses in South Africa do. Registering a company gives you a separate legal entity and limited liability, which matters more as you grow, but it is not a gate you have to pass before your first sale.
You are still liable for tax on what you earn either way. A sole proprietor declares business income in their personal return; that is not a loophole, it is just a different form.
When you have to register for VAT
This is the number most people get wrong, because it changed recently and had not moved for seventeen years before that.
R2.3 million in any twelve consecutive months
From 1 April 2026, the compulsory VAT registration threshold rose from R1 million to R2.3 million. You can register voluntarily from R120,000, up from R50,000. The test is a rolling twelve months — not your financial year — and once you cross it you have 21 business days to register.
Source: SARS on the VAT registration threshold. Confirm your own position with SARS or an accountant before acting on it.
For most people reading this, the practical answer is that VAT is not your problem yet. What matters is knowing the number exists and watching your rolling twelve-month turnover rather than discovering it after the fact.
Permits, and why nobody can give you one answer
If you only sell online and ship or hand over from home, you are generally not doing informal trading and a trading permit is not the question. The moment you sell in person — a market stall, a pop-up, a table outside a shop — it is.
Informal trading in South Africa is governed by the Business Act 71 of 1991, which gives each municipality the power to regulate trading in its own area. That is why there is no single national answer: the by-laws genuinely differ from one town to the next, including which areas you may trade in and what a permit costs.
In the City of Cape Town, for example, informal trading permits are issued for up to three years and the fees are adjusted every July. Your municipality will have its own equivalent, and its own application process.
Start at your municipality's business licensing or informal trading office — Cape Town's is here. If you are trading at an organised market, ask the organiser first: a well-run market usually holds the permission for the site and can tell you exactly what you personally need.
If you are selling food, there is one more thing
Food is the one category with a hard requirement that catches people out, and it is worth knowing before you bake anything to sell.
A Certificate of Acceptability, under Regulation R638
R638 of 2018, under the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act, requires a Certificate of Acceptability for food premises before food is handled for sale. You apply through your municipality's Environmental Health department, an inspector assesses the premises, and the certificate must then be displayed. It is not transferable — not between people, and not between premises.
Sources: SME South Africa on R638 and Food Consulting Services.
Because the certificate attaches to premises rather than to you, a home kitchen and a market stall are not automatically covered by the same one. Ask your municipality's Environmental Health office what applies to a temporary stall before you commit to a market date — and ask the organiser what they require, because a good one will already know.
What you actually need before your first order
- Something to sell, with a price you have worked out rather than guessed. Cost of materials, your time, and whatever cut the channel takes.
- Photographs taken in daylight against a plain background. This matters more than almost anything else on this list and costs nothing.
- A bank account in the name you trade under.
- A way to take payment that does not require the customer to trust you first.
- A stock number you believe. Overselling something you do not have is the fastest way to lose a customer permanently.
Notice what is not on the list: a company registration, a website, a logo, a card machine. Every one of those can wait until you know people want the thing.
Where Noques fits, and where it does not
Noques is the marketplace row in that table. You list products, a customer orders and pays by card, and you are charged a commission on what sells — 10% as standard, with lower rates for registered non-profits and for early vendors. There is no monthly fee, so a month in which you sell nothing costs you nothing.
It also covers the in-person half, which most online marketplaces do not: you can apply for a stall at a physical market, pay the fee in the app, and sell there with the same products and the same stock counts.
Where it is the wrong answer: if you sell services rather than physical products, or if you need delivery — Noques is collection only, and there is no booking or appointment system. If that is your business, one of the other three routes will serve you better, and it is better to know that now.
Ready to list your first product?
No monthly fee and no setup cost. You pay a commission only once something sells, so listing costs you nothing.