Hey Freelance Friends!

A TikTok video doing the rounds says getting accepted to sell on Makro is far easier than getting past the front door at Takealot, and that phone chargers and cables are the kind of boring products that sell before you have finished typing the description.

Both claims have the satisfying shape of a secret, which is the shape TikTok likes best and the one reality tends to flatten on contact. We spent the week reading Makro’s help centre, its seller agreement, Takealot’s seller guides and the regulator’s rules on electrical goods, and the picture is more interesting than the video.

Makro really is a friendlier front door in several ways, and a charger really is a high-demand product, and it is also the one product where a beginner can most easily end up on the wrong side of the law. So this edition is a how-to for getting onto Makro, with the fee maths nobody puts in a thirty-second clip and a method for finding products that actually sell.

Makro Marketplace lets third-party sellers list new products on makro.co.za that are not already available in a Makro store, with the seller setting the price and Makro taking a commission, and you must operate in South Africa to qualify. Registration is more automated than you might expect, because Makro’s help centre says its system is integrated with Home Affairs and other systems, so in most cases you will not need to upload anything if your details verify. If verification fails, you upload documents for manual review: a CIPC document if you register as a company, an ID document if you register as a sole proprietor, a SARS VAT document if you are VAT-registered, and proof of a bank account not older than three months.

The most common delay, according to one seller guide, comes from mismatched information, usually a business name that does not match the bank account, rather than from the steps themselves. The registration form also asks for your monthly revenue, whether you have a website, and whether you already sell on Takealot or Bid or Buy, which is the retail equivalent of being asked about your ex on a first date. You can start at Makro’s help centre guide, and the registration form lists [email protected] for help.

Here is what we can put side by side. Makro charges a monthly platform fee of R230 including VAT, while Takealot charges R400 excluding VAT, and Takealot says it will reply to applications within 10 business days. Takealot has accepted individuals without a registered company since 2020, and Makro accepts sole proprietors registering with an ID, so neither door requires a company. We found no published rejection rates for either marketplace, which means “easier” is a claim we cannot verify.

One seller-community write-up from June 2026 says Takealot applications are rejected most often for vague product descriptions and for crowded categories such as generic phone cases and basic chargers, where Takealot already has strong supply. That is one blogger’s observation, not a Takealot policy, but it would explain why the video’s favourite products are also the ones the same video says are easy on Makro: same product, different gatekeeper. Makro has not published equivalent criteria that we could find, and its own marketplace page says the marketplace is for products it does not already stock, so a charger that Makro sells in-store may not be listable. Treat “easier” as “cheaper to try and quicker to verify”, and check your product against Makro’s rules before you spend a cent on stock.

Makro charges you in four ways, and the video usually mentions one of them. There is the R230 monthly platform fee, charged to any seller with at least one active listing even in a month with no sales. There is a category-based commission, deducted from your payout. There is a transport fee charged per unit based on the volume and weight captured in your listing’s package details, plus a separate return fee per returned unit. First-mile delivery to Makro’s fulfilment centre is currently free. Commission works differently depending on VAT: if you are VAT-registered, VAT is removed from the selling price first, and in both cases VAT at 15% is added to the commission itself.

Customers only pay delivery on orders under R500, and Makro says that even then the fee does not cover the full courier cost, which is why the per-unit transport fee exists. The useful trick is that a product listed and sold as a pack counts as one unit for transport fees, so a three-pack of cables pays one transport fee instead of three.

Here is a deliberately made-up example, so you can see the shape of the sum. Say a pack sells for R300, the commission is 10% (R34.50 including VAT for a non-VAT-registered seller), the transport fee is R35 and the product costs you R150 landed. That leaves R80.50, so you need about three sales a month just to cover the R230 platform fee. Use Makro’s Seller Fee Calculator for your real numbers, because the commission and transport fee depend on your category and package size. One seller guide says payouts arrive twice a month and follow the delivery date, so your cash flow lags your sales.

Run every product idea through four lenses: demand, saturation, margin and compliance. For demand, start typing the product into Makro’s and Takealot’s search bars and see what autocomplete suggests. Then use Google Trends, which shows relative search interest rather than sales, so a high score tells you people are searching, not that anyone is buying. Switch the search type to Google Shopping for products with clear buying intent, and compare the same months across several years to catch seasonality.

For saturation, count how many near-identical listings fill the first page, because if the first page is a wall of the same cable, you would be the fortieth seller of it. For margin, use the fee calculator before you fall in love with anything.

Demand alone is a poor guide, because the obvious items are obvious to everyone. MyBroadband reported that a fast iPhone charger with a USB-C to Lightning cable was among Takealot’s top sellers in December 2023, and the retailer’s top categories that period included electronics accessories, homeware, DIY and stationery. So the demand is real, and so is the crowd.

The unexpected winners tend to come from complaints rather than lists. Read the reviews and questions on the top three listings for a product, note what customers keep grumbling about (too short, no case, wrong size), and design a pack that fixes the grumble. We found no evidence that any product “sells almost instantly” and no data on how quickly new Makro sellers get a first order, so treat that line as marketing and plan for a slow first month.

South Africa regulates electrical and electronic goods through the NRCS under compulsory specification VC 8055, and the NRCS lists plugs, adaptors and switches among the regulated products. Each model or product family must be approved before it enters the market, and an approval document called a Letter of Authority (LOA) is required before importation and sale. The NRCS says its rules cover imports whether they are for sale or for business use, and a foreign company has to apply through a South African agent. A basic USB wall charger with a South African plug is exactly the kind of item to check first. Whether a particular plain cable is in scope depends on the product, so ask the NRCS before you assume.

Radio-enabled products, such as Bluetooth or wireless accessories, are a separate matter, since ICASA governs telecommunications equipment, according to one market-access guide. Makro’s seller agreement adds that you may only sell authentic products and must be an authorised reseller or otherwise have the legal right to sell them.

The practical route for a beginner is to buy from a South African distributor that is the importer of record, ask for a copy of the LOA for the exact model, keep the VAT invoice, and avoid importing unbranded chargers yourself on a first attempt. We are not lawyers, so confirm anything specific with the NRCS.

Your first week, step by step

There is also a freelance angle that needs no stock: sellers who find the portal tedious may pay someone to set up listings, photograph products and write descriptions. Learn the process on your own first listing and you have a service to offer, though we have no demand data to promise it.

This week, write down your ten products, run them through the four lenses, and keep your three survivors. Then price those three in the fee calculator, and only register once at least one of them still looks like a business after the maths.

— The Profreelance Crew

P.S. If you register, tell us how long your verification took and what Makro asked for, because the help centre describes the process while only sellers know how it feels. Reply to this email and we will read every one.