In an aim to grow market share, fashion retailer Mr Price will launch an online shopping platform later this year.<\/p>\n
By global standards, the e-commerce platform in SA is small, but online retail sales have shown a steady increase over the last five years as the one-time timidness of South African shoppers takes a backseat and a growing number of time-poor and techno savvy consumers turn to the net for retail therapy and bargain hunting.<\/p>\n
A recent study from MasterCard<\/a>, revealed that online shopping had increased in SA and continued to show potential for growth.<\/p>\n The company’s Worldwide Online Shopping Survey said that the number of South Africans shopping online had steadily increased over the past two years, with 58% of respondents in the survey of active internet users saying that they used the internet for shopping.<\/p>\n This was an increase from the 53% that said that they shopped online in 2010, and the 44% that gave the same answer in 2009.<\/p>\n According to Arthur Goldstuck<\/a>, MD of World Wide Worx<\/a>, once people are experienced Internet users and go online regularly, their propensity to shop online increases dramatically.<\/p>\n “The key is to convert that propensity into shopping behaviour,” Goldstuck said. On Wednesday, Durban-based Mr Price reported a 19% rise in diluted headline earnings per share to 464.5 cents for the year ended March, from 388.8 cents a year ago. The current financial year comprised 52 trading weeks, while the prior year included 53 trading weeks, the group noted.<\/p>\n Operating profit grew 21.7% to R1.5 billion, and revenue rose 10% to R12.1 billion. Mr Price’s return on equity increased from 46.0% to 47.2%.<\/p>\n Retail sales for the 52 weeks increased by 10.2%, while sales in like-for-like locations were up by 8.2%. On a 52 week on 52 week basis the sales increase was 12.6% and comparable sales were up by 10.3%.<\/p>\n Mr Price’s Apparel chains increased sales and other revenue by 13.7% to R8.7 billion with comparable sales up by 10.6% and retail selling price inflation of 4.6%.<\/p>\n In the forthcoming year, the company is targeting space growth of 5%, resulting from a mix of approximately 70 new stores being opened, the expansion of highly performing stores and the reduction in size of poorly performing stores.<\/p>\n Enlisting the help of UK design consultancy Dalziel and Pow, Mr Price late last year opened the first of its new generation stores featuring a new brand identity and concept. Looking ahead, Mr Price’s first corporate-owned store in Ghana is expected to open in June.<\/p>\n The company joins a growing list of local players manoeuvring into African territories, as the often-quoted one billion African consumers ripe for the picking become the next hot ticket.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an aim to grow market share, fashion retailer Mr Price will launch an online shopping platform later this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[25,843,1534,2910,201],"class_list":["post-13431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-active","tag-arthur-goldstuck","tag-mastercard","tag-mr-price","tag-online-shopping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13431"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13433,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13431\/revisions\/13433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nHe believes that from 2013 the participation curve will rise significantly and quickly, which will lead to growth in the number of online shoppers and online shopping options available.<\/p>\n
\nThe company’s success stems from its fast-fashion model which tracks offshore trends from the likes of Topshop, Mango and H&M, and delivers fashion offerings timeously, at affordable prices.<\/p>\n
\nDalziel and Pow have worked with brands such as Next, Sony<\/a>, Primark, Levi’s, Topshop and Nokia<\/a>.<\/p>\n