I have been puzzled by the fact that we are still selling a lot of shelf companies. After all, it only takes a few days to register a new company, and the cost is R610, compared to R4 240 and upwards for a shelf company.

As the sales are online, we don’t get to ask the question.

I can only assume that they want an old company so that they appear to have been in business since its registration.

What really does make sense is to buy one with an import or export licence if that’s what you need, as obtaining these licences takes a long time. You will still want to register them for VAT, but that is usually a lot quicker.