Kalahari boosts e-commerce platform

 ·19 Sep 2013
Kalahari shop

Naspers-owned South African online retailer, Kalahari.com has selected global commerce platform provider, Hybris, to boost its retail business.

According to Kalahari, the Hybris Commerce platform will enable the site to support its expanding online operations – which include consumer-to-consumer (C2C) and business-to-consumer (B2C) retail, and also cater to a growing number of mobile shoppers.

The platform will boost Kalahari’s capacity to deliver digital goods such as eBooks, as well as a large expansion of its online catalog of digital and physical goods.

The Hybris platform will allow the online retailer to cope with increasing data and transaction volumes, and reduce site management and development costs.

Kalahari.com is owned by MIH Internet Holdings, which forms part of the Naspers Group.

“All our retail businesses and especially kalahari.com are highly customer centric, hence a large part of our IT focus is on delivering core platforms that enable the business to deliver the best customer experiences,” said Michael Needham CTO MIH E-Commerce Africa and Middle East.

“At large scale and across a continent, this becomes particularly challenging, but with hybris in place we have a foundation to build upon that will free up up our IT teams to focus on the more innovative edge of our customer offering going forward.”

According to Needham, cloud and mobile are a strong focus for the company.

Speaking at the 2013 uAfrica eCommerce Conference in Sandton on 11 September, Head of Marketing at Kalahari.com, Liz Hillock said noted that the e-retailer had seen a significant spike in mobile users, particulary in terms of tablets.

A survey conducted by Kalahari in June 2013, revealed that purchases made by customers accessing the site on tablets had seen “meteoric” growth of 70% year-on-year.

According to Hillock, Kalahari has invested over R1 million on opening and developing its mobile platforms.

More on Kalahari.com

The future of e-commerce in SA

Kalahari.com ready for Amazon play

Best e-commerce websites in South Africa

What’s driving m-commerce in SA?

Show comments
Subscribe to our daily newsletter