{"id":771072,"date":"2024-05-08T11:26:13","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T09:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=771072"},"modified":"2024-05-08T19:26:19","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T17:26:19","slug":"online-retail-boom-in-south-africa-as-amazon-launches-locally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/771072\/online-retail-boom-in-south-africa-as-amazon-launches-locally\/","title":{"rendered":"Online retail boom in South Africa as Amazon launches locally"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Global retail giant <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/770822\/amazon-launches-in-south-africa\/\"><strong>Amazon&#8217;s launch in South Africa<\/strong><\/a> is perfectly timed, with the country experiencing a massive boom in online retail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>New research shows that South Africa&#8217;s online retail sector grew to R71 billion in 2023, a 29% increase from the previous year, positioning the sector to break the R100 billion mark by 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 2023 rise comes after 35% growth the previous year (R55 billion in 2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The research was conducted by World Wide Worx in partnership with Mastercard, Peach Payments, and Ask Afrika.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The strategic shift towards competitive e-commerce offerings and enhanced customer engagement, including sophisticated AI-driven tools, has fundamentally transformed the retail landscape in South Africa,&#8221; said Arthur Goldstuck, CEO of technology market research firm World Wide Worx.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the study, same-day delivery services have experienced a particular boom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shoprite Checkers\u2019 Sixty60 service saw a 63.1% increase in the latter half of 2023, while Pick n Pay grew online sales by 76% and Woolworths reported a 47% online sales increases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By contrast, the country\u2019s current largest online retailer, Takealot, grew sales by only 6%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Andrea Rademeyer, founder and CEO of Ask Afrika, highlighted a notable shift in consumer behaviour based on data from the company&#8217;s Target Group Index (TGI) survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAs South Africans move more of their spending online, they also become more confident in the medium, and increase their individual levels of spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Most significantly, they are becoming more aware of the increased convenience and choice available online,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking at the survey, retailers highlighted the importance of customer service (73.9% agreement) and product variety for online success. Competitive pricing and personalized offers were deemed less essential, though AI is expected to boost the latter&#8217;s significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The study also looked at most significant operational challenges for the industry, which they listed as payment failures (18,2%) and managing customer queries and complaints (16,8%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the major issue for cart abandonment by consumers was reported to be declined credit cards (52,2%). Concerns over the security of credit card information and complicated checkout processes were also significant factors leading to abandoned carts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/609224\/online-retailer-in-south-africa-moves-to-locally-made-electric-delivery-cargo-vans\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/770822\/amazon-launches-in-south-africa\/\">Amazon launches in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent study has shown that South Africa&#8217;s online retail sector is continuing to boom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":765185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[657,1534,607],"class_list":["post-771072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-amazon","tag-mastercard","tag-world-wide-worx"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771072","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\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771072"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":771173,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771072\/revisions\/771173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}