Resources and News

• 27 June 2025: Cape Town City boosts informal economy with close to 800 new trading opportunities

• Sign up for Cape Town’s Business Hub 2025 training programme for SMMEs

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Structure

This current website gives you information about the informal economy in Cape Town and the Western Cape, South Africa. Each page represents a specific physical area, for example a flea market, where informal traders are generally based, or a type of service (where there is no specific physical point for the business). The pages have listings for various informal businesses, giving you information on their:

• Name

• A description of the goods or services being sold;

• Contact details;

• Location (including a Google Maps listing, where possible, and a What3Words description);

• Usual trading hours;

• Optional web page (for example a Facebook Page) for the business; and

• Last date of the update of the information.

Listings will be categorized according to the type of business on the page, then under each category, appear in order of the most recently updated information (although re-registration, with the same information, will not result in your business being promoted to the top). Please use Ctrl + F on your web browser when on an page (or the 🔎 icon on the top-right of this website) to search for a specific product or service that you're looking for.

We can define an informal business as one where the business' income is less than R 95 750 per annum. If you can read English, please help less-educated traders to understand this website.

Analytics

In 2024, there were 567 views on this website.

In 2023, there were 459 views on this website.

Do you run a market?

You are welcome to partner and develop your market page on this website.

If you run a market in South Africa, please meet Aidan at https://calendly.com/aidan-horn so that he can let you edit your market page on this website. This will give you free, volunteer-based, online exposure and an advertising and information platform for your market. Tourists and those seeking leisure activities can be directed to this website, to find out more about markets that are happening.

Submit your informal business details (for free)

Please use the following Google Form, in order to submit your informal business details, for this website, or to update your listing:

https://forms.gle/eDwLfQvipwASzA9fA

Unfortunately, it is too difficult for us to include images in your advert—text is simpler.

Feedback about particular listings can be made with this form: https://forms.gle/pAAiaUAcKz7AXZDh6 

Rationale

Informal businesses are often small and operated by individuals or families, and they may not have the resources or expertise to effectively market themselves. As a result, their target market may not even be aware that they exist. This can be a major obstacle for these businesses, as customers in a city may end up using more formal businesses that have better advertising and are more visible. To address this problem, this website has been created as an online classifieds platform specifically for informal businesses. This platform aims to help informal businesses and flea markets in Cape Town and the Western Cape, to advertise their products and services to a wider audience, and connect with potential customers. By providing a platform for informal businesses to advertise themselves, this website hopes to level the playing field and give these businesses a better chance to succeed. Ultimately, small business is more employment-intensive than large firms, so this helps to address unemployment in South Africa.

Create your own website, to support your informal business
R3000 (first year), R1500 (following years)

See https://www.aidanhorn.co.za/consulting/website-creation    Free hosting.  Custom domain.  All-inclusive. 

Or try it on your own: https://www.aidanhorn.co.za/blog/create-your-own-website 

Donations

Donations for this project can be made to Nedbank savings account 2063262748.  This is a dedicated account. 

Donations raised so far, from 2022 to 2025: R 1.00.