{"id":45736,"date":"2013-09-15T00:20:21","date_gmt":"2013-09-14T22:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=45736"},"modified":"2013-09-16T11:51:15","modified_gmt":"2013-09-16T09:51:15","slug":"the-future-of-e-commerce-in-sa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/45736\/the-future-of-e-commerce-in-sa\/","title":{"rendered":"The future of e-commerce in SA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mobile, online-offline convergence and simpler payment methods paint the landscape for where e-commerce is headed in South Africa, according to Luke McKend<\/a>, country director for Google<\/a> South Africa.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the uAfrica<\/a> eCommerce Conference in Sandton on Wednesday (11 September 2013), McKend presented the challenges of doing e-commerce in South<\/p>\n

Africa, and painted a picture of what the market will look like in the next few years, according to trends seen by Google.<\/p>\n

According to McKend, the key challenge faced by online stores in South Africa is to deliver on the promise of e-commerce – to gain loyal customers through meeting expectations and provide a stable, trustworthy and secure service.<\/p>\n

Looking at the South African e-commerce market, McKend highlighted that the country is projected to see 29.8 million Internet users by 2016, with a 25% increase in online spend anticipated this year.<\/p>\n

Notably, McKend noted that, in 2014, South Africa is expected to have 80% smartphone penetration as mobile operators such as Vodacom<\/a> and MTN<\/a> are working to bring “sophisticated” devices to more people at a more affordable price.<\/p>\n

“The web is mobile,” McKend said, stating that most people’s first interaction with the Internet in South Africa will be through a mobile phone – and Google SA stats reveal that there are more mobile searches than desktop searches in South Africa.<\/p>\n

\"Luke<\/a>

Luke McKend<\/p><\/div>\n

The future of e-commerce<\/h3>\n

Quoting data from World Wide Worx<\/a>, uAfrica head Andy Higgins<\/a> said that, in 2013, South Africans are projected to spend as much as R4.2 billion online – excluding air tickets – representing an estimated 25% growth in the market.<\/p>\n

According to McKend, the “store of the future” will a convergence between physical retail and online – where customers don’t discern between buying something online or offline, but view purchases and transactions as “I’m buying this from a store.”<\/p>\n

The gap between what is considered “commerce” and what is considered “e-commerce” is going to narrow, McKend said, and technology is going to be core to the transition.<\/p>\n

To this end, McKend said that all stores will need to make sure all their products are available online – if not for purchase, at least for review.<\/p>\n

“We need to make sure that all the inventory we actually have lives in the cloud,” he said, adding that users need to be able to see everything retailers have, online.<\/p>\n

Users who don’t see products online, assume it’s not available in store, McKend said, noting a growing trend in online users looking at inventory through websites to research products before stepping foot into a store.<\/p>\n

Another shift to be expected in the e-commerce space, are simpler payment methods.<\/p>\n

“We need to make online payment easier,” he said.<\/p>\n

According to the director, payments need to become a completely digital transaction, and noted that Google is experimenting with different payment methods, particularly NFC, across the globe.<\/p>\n

In mature markets like the USA, the Google Wallet has been there for a while – but it’s not necessarily a model applicable to other regions, like Africa, where a number of competing payment methods, like mPesa<\/a>, are seeing massive uptake and success.<\/p>\n

“The idea [of the Google Wallet] is to replace the card. The key is simplicity, to make sure you’re only carrying one device for all your needs.”<\/p>\n

In Africa, Google is looking at other methods, with McKend highlighting the NFC-card bus payment system in Kenya as an example of how to go about simplifying payment for services.<\/p>\n

In closing, McKend said that more stores will be moving to create a personal relationship with customers.<\/p>\n

While technology may change the landscape – how people shop and how people access stores – it’s the core of the experience customers have with stores that will determine continued success and loyalty.<\/p>\n

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

Citymob: from daily deals to designer dibs<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Kalahari.com reports big revenue spike<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Kalahari.com outlines SA shopping trends<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Bidorbuy expects strong online commerce growth in 2012<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mobile, online-offline convergence and simpler payment methods paint the landscape for where e-commerce is headed in South Africa, according to Luke McKend, country director for Google South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":45911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[2065,2424,26,1538],"class_list":["post-45736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-e-commerce","tag-google-sa","tag-headline","tag-luke-mckend"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45736","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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45736"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45979,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45736\/revisions\/45979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}