eCommerce and COVID-19
How Telematics is Driving eCommerce during COVID-19
If ever there was a time for the eCommerce sector to adopt telematics technology, it would be now: COVID-19 has disrupted the retail landscape, with more South Africans now choosing e-commerce as their preferred shopping channel over traditional brick-and-mortar stores. According to a Mastercard study, as much as 68% of South African consumers said they are shopping more online since the onset of the pandemic. More online shopping means that there are more deliveries to be made, and the logistics industry has had to scale operations to meet the growing demand. The various levels of lockdown, COVID-19 regulations and people working from home have created a greater reliance on home deliveries, with the industry now findi...
Why SMEs are the Lifeblood of the South African Economy
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent a staggering 98% of business in South Africa today. The fact that SMEs also employ between 50 and 60% of the country’s workforce and are responsible for a quarter of the job growth in the private sector – according to McKinsey – means they truly are the backbone of the South African economy. Yet it is SMEs that have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdown regulations have wreaked havoc, with the cash flows essential to sustaining smaller businesses completely drying up in some instances. Tragic stories of once-thriving businesses having to close their doors litter the financial landscape, and certainly, the virus could not come along at a worse time for owners already grappling with a precarious economy prior to its arrival. Bu...
How Post-Lockdown Shopping Figures Represent Changing Retail Landscape
The impact of COVID-19 on both consumers and retailers is becoming evident. Retailers are under pressure to reimagine and transform their businesses, build-out eCommerce solutions and expand their online offerings. Consumers, having already navigated a difficult year, and still uncertain about what the future holds, are likely to spend more conservatively over the next quarter. New data from Mobicred’s Consumer Spend index reveals some interesting trends as South Africans settle into post-lockdown shopping. While the previous quarter’s figures showed a higher level of eCommerce adoption, this spike was to be expected amid Coronavirus infection fears and consequent limitations on physical shopping during lockdown. Despite adoption rates levelling off, the data shows an increase of 9% i...
Cash Crusaders Launches eCommerce Service in South Africa
Second-hand goods chain, Cash Crusaders has built and launched ‘Click & Collect’, the first instalment in taking their retail business online. “Although we’ve been planning the launch of eCommerce for our business for a while, COVID-19 rapidly increased the rate in which we rolled the service out,” says Sean Stegmann, CEO of Cash Crusaders Franchising. “As discussed in our recent 702’s Franchising for Future Success webinar, with shopper behaviours changing somewhat, the timing was perfect for us to aggressively embrace our digitisation strategy. We started with our WhatsApp Video service back in June and have gone live with our Click & Collect service.” The company says that this service will cater for both private label new goods as well as second-hand goods and works off a live ...
South Africa’s eCommerce Market to Reach $3.5 Billion in 2020, says Researchers
eCommerce has broken barriers as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic’s lockdown restrictions. Statista believes that the South African market will reach just over R62 billion this year, and show a compounded annual growth rate of 10% for the next four years. User penetration will be 37% this year and is expected to hit almost 51% by 2024. And even given the devasting impact of the national lockdown restrictions, which meant that online shoppers could order only “essential” items, 22% of a thousand South African adults surveyed in late April by Ipsos said they were using online shopping more frequently than in the month before, with 65% shopping less at a supermarket according to Nielsen figures released in early May. eCommerce and Consumer Trust “We’re seeing more and more people real...
eCommerce Surges by 139% Amidst Pandemic, Research Shows
Sourced from Innovation Village. South Africa’s eCommerce industry is booming retailers were forced to take their operations online due to lockdown and safety restrictions. Now, with lockdown restrictions easing, the temptation is to throttle back on online efforts and go back to the ways of old. That would be a big mistake, believes Warrick Kernes, founder of the Insaka eCommerce Academy. “Businesses really need to embrace this and make it part of their strategy.” At this time, more South Africans are delving into online buying for everything from groceries and toiletries to hardware and digital devices. But it’s when you drill down into the statistics that the true uptake becomes apparent. Just recently payment gateway PayFast released information regarding transactions during the Januar...
