{"id":43330,"date":"2013-07-31T10:17:42","date_gmt":"2013-07-31T08:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=43330"},"modified":"2013-07-31T10:44:47","modified_gmt":"2013-07-31T08:44:47","slug":"whats-driving-m-commerce-in-sa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/43330\/whats-driving-m-commerce-in-sa\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s driving m-commerce in SA?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new survey conducted by online retailer, Kalahari.com<\/a>, indicates that mobile shopping using tablets is on the rise – but smartphones are still firmly in the driving seat of mobile commerce.<\/p>\n

According to kalahari.com’s\u00a02013 mobile shopping survey, tablet ownership has increased 10% amongst its customers, with 40% of shoppers using the platform to shop online.<\/p>\n

The survey of 1,048 customers\u00a0also revealed that 66% of respondents who do not own tablets indicated an intention to purchase one.<\/p>\n

“Growth in tablet traffic to kalahari.com is growing at a slightly lower rate than that of mobile traffic, but we are seeing conversion rates that are four-and-a-half times higher,” said Caren Genthner-Kappesz<\/a>, CEO of kalahari.com.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recorded a meteoric 70% increase in tablet traffic on kalahari.com over the last year and we predict that this growth will go up with the vigorous uptake of tablets by consumers,\u201d the CEO said.<\/p>\n

A majority of survey respondents (50%) use Apple<\/a>‘s iPad, whicle 33.4% fall into the Samsung Galaxy Tab camp. While Apple still dominates, Genthner-Kappesz noted a decrease in the gap between the two rivals.<\/p>\n

Recent research by World Wide Worx<\/a> echoed the trend, finding that Apple dominates the South African tablet market with a 45% share \u2013 but Samsung is catching up quickly with a 39% share.<\/p>\n

Smartphones still in the driving seat<\/h3>\n

Despite the growth of tablets in the market, the Kalahari survey notes that smartphones are still firmly in the driving seat of mobile commerce in South Africa.<\/p>\n

According to Kalahari, smartphone ownership amongst its users increased by 7%, meaning 86% of online shoppers at the site own smartphones.<\/p>\n

“Smartphones are still key players in fuelling e-commerce growth. A huge proportion of South Africa\u2019s connected use the devices to access the internet and for online shopping,\u201d said Genthner-Kappesz.<\/p>\n

While the survey indicates that the number of shoppers that have made purchases using their phones has gone up by 26%, Genthner-Kappesz said the company has seen revenue from mobile sites increase 145% year-on-year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe proportion of traffic generated by smartphones on kalahari.com reveals just how key smartphones will continue to be in fuelling eCommerce growth,” the CEO said.<\/p>\n

Mobile traffic as a proportion of total traffic increased by 110% between\u00a0Q4 2012 and Q1 2013. It then increased again from Q1 2013 to Q2 2013 by another 129%, Genthner-Kappesz said.<\/p>\n

“Clearly there is a propensity in South Africa to purchase goods via mobile device, the key is going to be in closing that loop,” she said.<\/p>\n

More on e-commerce<\/h3>\n

SA online shopping takes a step backwards<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t move your wallet onto your phone yet<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Top online retailers in SA<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Mastercard heads to mobile with virtual wallet<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Is South Africa ready for cashless?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kalahari.com says that while mobile shopping using tablets is on the rise, smartphones are still firmly in the driving seat of mobile commerce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":31987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,3092,6402,117,779],"class_list":["post-43330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-kalahari-com","tag-mobile-commerce","tag-smartphones","tag-tablets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43330","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43330"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43336,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43330\/revisions\/43336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}