Apexium, something changed with them. Not sure what, their website does not work anymore.
Both of these - their prices vs importing oneself, much easier and about the same price to just buy from them. 
So my experience is a bit different from that posted so far.
I bought 100 x LF 304ās from Docan who had a warehouse in JHB. The price of the cells was R1440 at the time (Jan 2025). Thats R144,000 for 100 cells.
Looking at the links posted above for the same cells would have cost me R189,000.
So a R38,000 saving - not insignificant. So I dont get why ppl think DIY is not worth it.
These same cells in China today are approx R1020 each + shipping. I get if you only wanted 16 cells its probably not worth it, but if you are building out bigger battery banks DIY all the way as far as I can tell.
What am I missing ?
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These stores have almost no stock.
Who do you mean has almost no stock? The companies in SA running web store front ends or the Chinese companies?
Are LFP cells zero rated in SA or are there duties/VAT on them ? Never having imported cells into SA, I dont know what the situation is.
Iāve imported completed batteries before. You pay VAT, plus the clearing fee for whoever handles that for you. I donāt know if this changed when they levied that 10% tariff on solar panel imports, but I donāt think so.
What we paid:
Only 7%?
17% - Ā±17
Typo with !7 ā¦
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So cheaper to Import into Zambia - LFP is zero rated. Zambia is my country of residence but currently residing in the Western Cape.
Was hoping it might be easier to bring the cells into RSA rather then Zambia.
The issue I have hit is I can get the cells to the Port of Dar Es Salaam, but thatās it. I have to organise getting the cells from Dar to Lusaka and thatās dangerous. Once that container is opened, anything can happen if one is not there on site to control everything.
I would have thought with load shedding that LFP would have been zero rated here as well. Not so it seems.
Jip. One acronym comes to mind - ANC.
The thought had crossed my mind. But then I thought to myselfā¦..surely not ;0
Titbit - been waiting for this - it is coming, just HODL:
Tried before to buy batts in Yen.
Was declined.
Transaction must be in dollars.
Read this on 4x4 forum - post 453:
https://www.4x4community.co.za/forum/showthread.php/360117-Saudi-and-BRICS
I buy dollars form a SA bank - SWIFT.
Then I pay in dollars a JP Morgan bank in the east, Singapore I think.
Chinese supplier who sells the batts gets paid in dollars by JP Morgan.
Then it must be convert back to the Yen.
I then pay import duties on the batteries.
Everyone takes a cut.
SARS, SWIFT, the banks, the USA smiling all the way, the world funding their debt in ways we donāt understand.
Ps Allow some authors freedom ok!
While allowing some poetic license 
- the whole of Africa (excluding Eswatini most likely) wholesale abandoning SWIFT is a crock of manure (point taken about everyone taking a cut and debt).
Btw, one ZA bank does apparently now offer CIPS as an option.
CIPS transactions will be available on Standard Bank platforms from September 2025.
Will be interesting to know whether the cell/component/battery sellers for DIYāers will quote in yuan if requested and how it compares to dollar/SWIFT based ālandedā costs. Shipping will probably still be dollar based I suspect.
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The big issue is money laundering. We need to somehow prove to the world that we are NOT an easy way for people to soak, rinse and withdraw. Weāre already on the grey list, and there are numerous things going on to try and get us off that (includingā¦ that sending money to Namibia now has to be done via SWIFT, the border used to be open). Abandoning SWIFT in the middle of all that is probably not very likely.
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heading somewhat off-topic but South Africa, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, and Nigeria are no longer on the grey list.
National Treasury congratulates all relevant Government Departments and Government Agencies on the success of their individual and collective efforts, and acknowledges their commitment to ensuring that the country exits the FATF greylist. National Treasury also acknowledges the support and guidance received from ESAAMLG, support from the private sector, including regulated institutions as well as the technical assistance from the EU, UK, USA, Switzerland and the World Bank
Would like to see what Alibaba does.
USA, Leaders of the Free World and the trust in the dollar is not what it was 6+ months ago.
Will see what the future holds ito SWIFT and BRICS/Africa/JP Morganās moves for there are some interesting developments worldwide.
Will not go into that here as some of the posters on the forum below make some compelling points - posts 454 and 453 from today.
https://www.4x4community.co.za/forum/showthread.php/360117-Saudi-and-BRICS
Rather debate the matter there.
Must warn people, it is much tougher crowd there than here. Put on your big boy pants. 
Whether your twig and berries are covered, or not, when wearing your kilt there is nothing to debate. The statement ā53 African countries have taken a historic step: exiting the Western SWIFT financial system and switching to Chinaās CIPS, which uses the yuan instead of the dollarā is nonsense.
Merit of one system vs the other, likelihood of one replacing the other, motives of the ābenevolent benefactorsā on all sides are different matters altogether but not relevant to the quoted statement of events.
also,
J.P. Morganās direct membership in Chinaās Cross-Border Inter-Bank Payments System (CIPS) gives clients efficient access to CIPS for clearing cross-border RMB payments. Offering offshore RMB in the U.S. allows smaller U.S. financial institutions and businesses to compete more effectively against larger banks that have financial operations outside the U.S. or in places with offshore RMB hubs.
Donāt think most people will now conclude USA institutions are replacing SWIFT with CIPS.
Bloddy hell. Would have helped if this came a bit earlier!
My wife just got retrenched. Business had to close. Many factors, one is that certain dishonest players was manipulating markets, but another smaller one was the issue of being on the gray list (which meant some banks would not do business with us).
This is really really off-topic, and perhaps needs a thread elsewhere. But there are players in this country who will give you R2000 for signing a piece of paper. They then use that piece of paper to give you an interest free loan, and then they use your SDA (discretionary allowance) to do arbitrage trading with digital currencies, taking a cut (ie, everything else) as profit. Basically, a big old racket because SA legislation does not allow businesses to buy digital currencies, which makes it artificially scarceā¦ so suddenly all those people with unused SDAs were just too good to leave alone. That, plus what seems to be clear interference with exchange rates, or so I heard, basically killed the market.
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Donāt think so either.
For the rest of the world, lets see what comes around in the next few years.
Personally it has no bearing on me at all.
But if one can buy from China and are not āforcedā to buy dollars first, or the trade between countries donāt involved the USA in any manner or form (dollar pricing/financial systems), now that would be good for me as a small oke ito costs of goods, batteries.
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So i work for a company that regularly order samples from China. We have 2 options. Paypal or Alipay or the bank
Paypal: Cheaper. But alot of the China manufacturers dont use that anymore, because they struggle to get the monies.
Or what I normaly use, is Alipay. They there you pay directly in RMB. From you credit card.
BUT, they charge a 3% service fee. Cool fo small amount. Not so leka if you pay big amounts.
Bank - you have to show the paperwork, if the shipping or manufacturing is late. Explain why its late and all that jazz. But, i think the cheapest if big amounts.
If the seller is on Alibaba, you can pay from there aswell. But that can take sometime for the seller to get the monies and sending the items.
Its also sometimes better to pay in RMB because if they quote you in $ a week or 2 ago, the RMB/$ might have change in there favour, so they get more RMB. Quoting you in RMB, you always pay the correct price.
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