New research by the Boston Consulting Group predicts that South Africa\u2019s Internet economy will grow from R51 billion in 2011, to R103 billion in 2016. If local e-commerce growth is anything to go by, the Boston Consulting Group\u2019s predictions are likely to come true.<\/p>\n
Kalahari.com<\/a> said that they have experienced solid growth in e-commerce over the past year, both in terms of revenue and new shoppers.<\/p>\n \u201cKalahari.com drove an 89% increase in new shoppers over festive season 2011, compared to 2010. This is a huge achievement in what is essentially still a nascent market,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n Kalahari.com added that the first quarter of 2012 has started well, and they predict further growth in the next few years, particularly in mobile commerce.<\/p>\n \u201cSince the launch of our dedicated mobile site, we\u2019ve already surpassed initial expectations and have seen 100% growth in the last 6 months alone,\u201d said Kalahari.com.<\/p>\n Takealot<\/a> also continued their strong growth in 2012. \u00a0\u201cThe first three months have shown encouraging signs and we expect this to continue this year and in the years to come. \u00a0Growth this year has been in the high double digit range,\u201d said Donna Stephens<\/a>, head of marketing and customer service at Takealot.<\/p>\n Online retailer, Wantitall<\/a> also experienced strong growth over the last twelve months. \u201cWe see our turnover up 10-15% year-on-year,\u201d said Wantitall CEO, Justin Drennan<\/a>.<\/p>\n Drennan is cautiously optimistic about their future growth despite growing competition in the local e-commerce market.<\/p>\n \u201cThings have become a lot more competitive over the last few years, and unless businesses are willing to put some serious money behind their online retail play, or have a large brand to leverage, they should expect a tough time online,\u201d said Drennan.<\/p>\n \u201cWith more players entering the space, marketing costs have increased dramatically, which means businesses have to rely on more inventive methods to acquired customers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" South Africa’s largest e-commerce players expect their strong growth to continue over the next few years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[2067,2065,26,1257,2066,1256],"class_list":["post-8198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-boston-consulting-group","tag-e-commerce","tag-headline","tag-justin-drennan","tag-kalhari-com","tag-wantitall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8198","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8198"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10189,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8198\/revisions\/10189"}],"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=8198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}