Covid-19 led eCommerce revolution



The Covid-19 crisis has redefined the retail playing field.&nbsp; This has seen retailers scrambling to accommodate changed consumer behaviour as shopping surges online.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The pandemic has exposed the precariousness of a solely bricks and mortar model.&nbsp;&nbsp;According to a recent report by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/survey-south-african-consumer-sentiment-during-the-coronavirus-crisis" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">McKinsey</a>,&nbsp;consumers expect a relative shift to online shopping in most categories in the short term,&nbsp; driven primarily by a sharp decrease in in-store shopping. In the longer term, 40 percent of consumers plan to increase online shopping once the crisis is over.



Fear of infection drives move to online



“Previous epidemics have foreshadowed this online trend,”&nbsp;&nbsp;says Derek Cikes, Commercial Director at buy now pay later fintech, Payflex.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“The<a href="http://weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/digital-payments-cash-and-covid-19-pandemics/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;SARS epidemic in 2003</a>&nbsp;expedited China’s path in launching digital payments and eCommerce in the country, creating a permanent shift in consumer behaviour.&nbsp; Similarly, the Coronavirus has caused a marked change in South Africa’s consumer behaviour and habits, with social distancing, hygiene measures and self-quarantine now integral parts of our everyday realities,” says Cikes.



With the crisis expected to remain for the foreseeable future, these behaviours are anticipated to become further entrenched and remain even as the crisis eventually ebbs.



Shopping:&nbsp; an altered reality



Shopping is no longer a leisurely, sensory-filled experience.&nbsp; Instead, retailers have replaced sampling of beauty items or delightful food temptations with an antibacterial touch averse world of hand sanitizers and plexiglass barriers.&nbsp;&nbsp;



This interaction or rather fear of interaction is driving new shopping behaviour, with consumers opting for the safety and convenience of eCommerce. And retailers are hastening to adapt to what they view as lasting changes in the way that people choose to shop as millions of consumers choose online as their preferred medium of shopping.



Epidemics’&nbsp;impact on retail



According to a&nbsp;<a href="https://public.tableau.com/profile/salesforcecommercecloud#!/vizhome/SalesforceShoppingIndex/SalesforceShoppingIndex" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Global Shopping Index</a>&nbsp;published by Salesforce, the number of unique digital shoppers rose 40% year-over-year for Q1 2020.&nbsp;



In a South African context, 29% of online consumers say they are doing far more shopping online than before the coronavirus outbreak while 65% say they are visiting physical stores less, according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nielsen.com/za/en/insights/article/2020/overcoming-online-shopping-obstacles-amid-lockdowns-in-africa-and-the-middle-east-is-not-only-retailer-driven/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nielsen study</a>&nbsp;of 10 markets in Africa and the Middle East, including South Africa.&nbsp;



“The pandemic has fast-tracked trends that were already budding in the eCommerce space including digital and alternative payments.&nbsp;The 40% increase in shoppers and 25% increase in eCommerce merchant sign-ups to our platforms highlights this monumental shift towards digital as an increasingly preferred avenue of shopping and transacting,”&nbsp; says Cikes.



Cikes says the increased availability of click-and-collect models, digital payment models like buy now pay later platforms and other alternative payment options,&nbsp; as well as faster delivery models, are anticipated to further fuel this online revolution.&nbsp;



Global players wake up to eCommerce opportunity



Major tech and retailer stores are waking up to the huge potential of eCommerce as millions of consumers choose online space for their shopping. Facebook is making a major push into e-commerce with the launch of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/business/shops" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Shops</a>,&nbsp;a way for businesses to set up free storefronts on Facebook and Instagram.&nbsp;



While<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/10/business/zara-inditex-online-investment/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;Zara-owner Inditex&nbsp;</a>recently announced plans to close up to 1,200 smaller-sized stores, and to invest 3 billion dollars in digital commerce.&nbsp;



“Retailers and tech companies are recognising the significance, need and value to move online in order to accommodate consumer behaviour and sentiment for safer, seamless shopping alternatives.&nbsp; It will be interesting to see the kind of personalised, targeted spin they can put on it based on their collected user data around interests and geolocation,” says Cikes.



How SA retailers can harness this opportunity



The consumer mindset has changed in terms of their relationship to eCommerce.&nbsp; Online has become an accepted, go-to shopping alternative with the digital environment providing consumers with convenience, safety and access to a wide range of shopping options.



And while hygiene and safety concerns have provided the initial impetus in driving consumers online, shoppers have now experienced this environment as a feasible option with its accompanying convenience and benefits. This is entrenching the shift to online shopping, extending its impact to long after the pandemic has passed.



“We’re reaching a tipping point for eCommerce.&nbsp; Standalone bricks and mortar are no longer sufficient as consumers demand more rapid digitisation solutions.&nbsp; The fact that more people than ever are relying on the internet to shop for their everyday needs makes it imperative to have an online shopping model in order to remain competitive and viable.



The eCommerce revolution is here.&nbsp; Those that will survive will be retailers who have a multichannel approach to sales that provides customers with an option for a seamless shopping experience from the comfort of their own homes.&nbsp; This is no longer a luxury. It’s critical,” concludes Cikes.&nbsp;



&#8211; Paul Behrmann, Founder &amp; CEO of Payflex

Excited Woman Shopping Online At Home

Op-Ed: The eCommerce Lifeboat For South Africa’s Retail Industry

TOPLINE Twitter announced Wednesday that it will test a new feature that will prompt users to open up a link to an article before sharing it, which appears to be a move to further combat the spread of misinformation on the platform.



KEY FACTS



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Some Twitter uses may be subject to a prompt to click on a link if they try to retweet without reading the article first, billed by Twitter as a feature “designed to <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1270821434462539783?s=20" target="_blank">empower</a> healthy and informed public conversation.”</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>English speakers on <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1270783537667551233?s=20" target="_blank">Android devices</a> will be the first to see the tests.Users will still have the ability to retweet a message without clicking the link first if they chose to <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1270783537667551233?s=20" target="_blank">tap through</a> the prompt.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>According to Twitter Support, an official company account, the platform will only check if a user has clicked the article link recently <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1270804405886091266?s=20" target="_blank">through Twitter</a>, not elsewhere on the internet.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Twitter denied some skeptical users’ accusations that the platform is testing the feature to establish a revenue stream via click-through to outside websites, saying the platform is not <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1270821781843124227?s=20" target="_blank">testing ad products</a> with the prompts.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Twitter Support told one user it would watch to see if reminding users to read an article before they share it leads to more <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1270809139917225985?s=20" target="_blank">informed discussion</a>.</li></ul>



<figure class="wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">Sharing an article can spark conversation, so you may want to read it before you Tweet it. To help promote informed discussion, we&#39;re testing a new prompt on Android –– when you Retweet an article that you haven&#39;t opened on Twitter, we may ask if you&#39;d like to open it first.&mdash; Support (@Support) <a href="https://twitter.com/Support/status/1270783537667551233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 10, 2020</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



CRUCIAL QUOTE



“It&#8217;s easy for links [and] articles to go viral on Twitter. This can be powerful but sometimes dangerous, especially if people haven&#8217;t read the content they&#8217;re spreading. This feature (on Android for now) encourages people to read a linked article prior to retweeting it,” Twitter product lead Kayvon Beykpour&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/kayvz/status/1270788548002631681?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">commented</a>&nbsp;upon the announcement of the feature testing.



KEY BACKGROUND



The new prompt tests are the latest Twitter effort to curb the spread of misinformation on the platform. Twitter last month displayed <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2020/05/29/twitter-flags-trump-tweet-threatening-violence-against-minneapolis-protesters/#5684bf57bc33">fact-check tags</a> on two of President Donald Trump’s tweets that featured misleading information regarding mail-in ballots and voter fraud. Twitter also rolled out testing for a new feature to allow users to <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.theverge.com/21286855/twitter-articles-prompt-unread-feature-conversations" target="_blank">limit</a> who can reply to their tweets. The platform has faced <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/05/27/heres-why-twitter-is-facing-attacks-from-both-trump-and-democrats/#3a95dad95df0">criticism</a> from both sides of the aisle in recent weeks, from conservatives over accusations of censorship and from the left for not doing enough to stifle misinformation.



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/">Carlie Porterfield</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/business">Business</a>

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Twitter Begins Asking Users To Actually Read Articles Before Sharing Them

They say ideas can strike at any moment. For South African Robyn Smith it was a London beauty store that inspired her to start a R41–million ($3-million) online African business.
“I was looking to buy a night cream for myself. I’ve got a background in marketing, so I didn’t want to be duped into buying the best creative agency advertising it; I wanted to buy the best product.”
“It was the first time I started looking at the ingredients’ list to find that the ‘natural night creams’ that I was picking up didn’t have a single botanical name in the listing. Some didn’t even have ingredient lists.”
So Smith founded her own, called Faithful to Nature, a South African online health shop. It sells anything from lipstick and underwear to spices and chocolates; so long as they are natural, organic and ethically sound.
“When you’ve got an infant industry like this it’s frustrating on the one hand because you are dealing with so many teething issues and on the other it’s exciting because there is so much opportunity,” she says.
Few people would have heard about ethical consumerism when Smith started her business. But, eco-friendly alternatives are on the rise.
“When I started in 2007, there was this misnomer that if a product contained aloe vera it was natural and organic. It didn’t matter what it was preserved with. There was a completely wrong idea on what actually constituted a natural organic product.
“When I got back to South African soil, and started looking for natural and organic stuff on the shelf, I realized there was no structure to the industry at all.”
Right up until 2012, Smith felt like she was chasing shadows, she calls them pink fluffy clouds. She was R2.5 million ($184,000) in debt; experts told her to run for the hills. She also faced divorce.
“When we got divorced, I had a 16-month-old baby, I didn’t own a car, I didn’t own a house, I had a business that was millions of rand in debt. My family couldn’t financially back me. My parents actually took a R500,000 ($37,000) mortgage on the house to keep the business going.”
“I didn’t have a choice but to turn the business into a profitable enterprise.”
Now, Smith is reaping the rewards of hundreds of hours spent scrutinizing the ingredient labels on products and ignoring the naysayers.
“I believe in 10 years, it’s going to be, you go and buy me a shaving cream and it will be organic, it’s a no-brainer. Once you start using natural organic products, you can’t go back.”
Smith’s ticket to success has been strict quality control. If new research shows that a product isn’t safe, she has to be brave enough to take it off the shelf, even if it’s a best-seller.
“I always had a very strong ethical compass. Even at school, I was always getting into trouble for being outspoken on the right thing. It didn’t necessarily make me quite popular,” says Smith.
“Ingredient integrity isn’t a static product. As more interest grows, more research is done on it.”
Smith’s warehouse can take 400 orders per day and delivers across the country. So determined is she to keep the company environmentally friendly, she reuses packaging from suppliers for her own customers.
“You can imagine; there is a huge amount of packaging coming into the business. Sometimes we will send out an order in a box that was actually used to bring in stock. So, it isn’t this beautifully branded Faithful to Nature box, but it’s the right thing to do. On the box we will write ‘reused box, please recycle me because I want to be in a bag next time’.”
With stock lining the rafters of her warehouse, and packages going out by the truckload, Smith is going to be a busy bee, the naturalists would be happy to let her buzz.

Robyn-Smith_JC-2-of-5

Back To Nature: Why Even Lipstick And Shaving Cream Should Be Organic

A few months ago, I suddenly found myself dropping to the ground and crouching in long grass with bullets whirring overhead. Minutes earlier, I’d been following a group of pro-Russian fighters conducting a sweep of an area in eastern Ukraine to make sure it was ‘clean’ of the Ukrainian military. For a few frozen moments, my world stood still.
Everything was deathly quiet aside from the frighteningly close cracking of gunfire. Somewhere in the distance a dog was barking and the commander was shouting&#8230; Yes, I was afraid.
Last May, I was sitting in a hotel room, warm water lazily filling a bath tub nearby. I switched on my phone and instantly paled. I was just as afraid.
“Scum of the earth”, “f*** her”, “take a knife and pull out all her Russian shit”.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-31873" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/facebook-profile-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/facebook-profile-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/facebook-profile-600x338.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/facebook-profile-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/facebook-profile.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
My Twitter feed had gone into overdrive and as I scrolled down each message, the abuse intensified.
I was on assignment in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, reporting for the Moscow-based broadcaster, Russia Today. The two countries were at war with each other and a local activist had picked up on my location and started a manhunt – “not just to catch her but to kill her”.
Within hours, I was on a plane out of the country. I arrived at the airport with dark glasses and a scarf. If I hadn’t been so afraid, it might have been funny.
Ukraine is currently the third most dangerous country for journalists to work in. The online harassment I faced, and continue to face, is not unique to Ukraine though, or for that matter, to journalists in general.
But what the threats uniquely focus on is my gender – the fact that I’m a woman – and the explicit threats are of extreme violence to rape and assault me. Most of my so-called online detractors focus their criticism less on my work and more on me.
My experience echoes the stories of other female journalists, writers and bloggers. A staggering 72.5% of online harassment is targeted at women, according to the Organisation for Safety and Co-operation in Europe.
The issue is of such concern that a special panel has been set up to address it. Trolling has become a favorite past-time for people buoyed by the anonymity and safety the online world offers. It is easy to sit in your home and spurt threats at anyone with views you don’t like. Legislation is far from water-tight in preventing it and what gives these words so much power is the incitement they can evoke and the very real possibility for them to be carried out in the real world.
I was in a taxi, lost, in an outlying suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. The driver had been circling the same neighborhoods for more than an hour and it was starting to get dark and I was getting concerned.
In such a situation, GPS tracking is a godsend – not just for finding one’s way but for alerting one’s editors to a possible abduction attempt. Today, journalists are seen as legitimate targets – no longer do we merely cover the story; in many instances we’ve become the story – whether online or in the real world.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-31871" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Ilovaysk10-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Ilovaysk10-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Ilovaysk10-600x338.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Ilovaysk10-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Ilovaysk10.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
The number one fear we all share is that of being kidnapped. Paradoxically though, while switching on my cellphone’s GPS that day in Beirut and increasing my security, I also decreased it by alerting online detractors as to where I was.
The risks are greater when you’re a woman in the field than a man. In many parts of the world, women journalists are a strange persona for those with preconceived ideas of where a woman’s place should be.
Once, during an embed (term for a journalist attached to a military unit in conflict areas) with American soldiers in the Afghan province of Zabul, a group of children came running after us, laughing and joking. I was weighed down by a bulletproof jacket, helmet and backpack, but through the military sunglasses that kept slipping down my nose I could see the children pointing at my red-painted finger nails.
When we eventually took a breather and I removed my helmet, one of the more courageous boys plucked up the courage to step forward and ask: “Ma’am, do your parents know you’re here?”
All voices need to be heard, whether male or female, whether for or against the views one holds. Courage lies not only in speaking out for what one believes in, but for making sure the views of those we disagree with are given a platform.
– The writer is South African and the Middle East bureau chief of Russia Today. She was reporting for the channel in Kiev when a manhunt started against her and she had to exit.

shutterstock_266430095

‘Catch Her… Kill Her’

It’s 3AM on a Saturday and Chance Tubane and Patience Nduwawe are stepping it up on the dance floor at K-club, a popular nightspot in Kigali’s upmarket Nyarutarama neighborhood. Tubane and her brother Nduwawe show off some pretty cool dance moves, swaying in blissful abandon, just like the hip, upwardly-mobile Rwandan thirty-somethings around them.
Ten years ago, Tubane would have never imagined this moment possible with her brother. Twenty years ago, Rwanda would have never imagined this moment possible with a young population of genocide survivors. They play hard and work harder.
Along with her brother, Tubane is the founder of Tohoza.com, a successful online classifieds directory in Rwanda that’s now among the country’s top three most popular websites.
Tubane and Rwanda have one thing in common: a story of loss, struggle and triumph. A story that cannot be recounted without returning to 1994, the year the country lost a million of its people to the genocide; the year Tubane thought she had lost her family forever.
She still remembers the murky details of the night of April 6, 1994, the night Rwanda’s Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed in a plane crash, and her father tiptoed into the bedroom and whispered fearfully to his family: “It seems the president’s plane has crashed. Not sure what will happen now.”
Their home in Kacyiru was in the same neighborhood as the Parliament and within minutes of the announcement, was the center stage of the bloody Hutu-Tutsi crossfire that erupted.
“The shootings started right away, we heard people crying and screaming. We put mattresses against the walls and stayed in the corridor of the house,” says Tubane, who huddled with her parents and two brothers, Nduwawe and Confiance. Long moments of silence and despair followed.
“A couple of days later, one of the men came to our door and asked us to run, and I did. I ran to the church nearby, not realizing my family was not with me. I didn’t see them for months after that,” says Tubane.
The imagery continues to haunt her: her 11-year-old self in tattered clothes, looking for family, looking for food, on the run, “skipping countless bodies on the streets”, scenes even a Hollywood film will not be able to capture, says Tubane.
“There were piles and piles of bodies. I don’t know why they spared me. I escaped but thought my family was dead. I could imagine my dad being killed in his pyjamas, Confiance being killed whilst eating, and Patience killed
in silence.”
In reality, and unknown to Tubane then, they had all fled and survived, making the 150-kilometer trip in a pickup truck from Kigali to a relative’s home in Gisenyi, near Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a home overlooking beautiful lakes and hills.
“I hope you were guilty guys. What were you thinking, leaving without me?” Tubane jests with her brother Nduwawe now.
It was a miracle to be reunited with her family in July when a relative found her and took her to them. The family moved to Goma to start anew, but there was more tragedy in store. Tubane’s mother, then 41, died of blood loss following surgery.
Tubane, who was always top of her class in school, was soon dispatched with her godmother, first to Cameroon, then Kenya and Tanzania, and to her aunt’s home in Belgium two years later.
Nduwawe, then 17, stayed on with his father and brother, but in 1996, on his way to Bukavu to take his university exams, was caught up in the violence in the eastern DRC, and was forced to spend nine years in the forest, his whereabouts unknown to his family.
“There were no roads, it was not possible for me to contact anyone, I led the life of a refugee in an equatorial forest,” says Nduwawe.
“I lit candles for nine years, asking the Lord to show us that Patience is alive. My prayers were finally answered,” says Tubane. A relative who had seen him helped track him down and he was able to return home to Kigali.
By then, Tubane had completed a Master’s degree in information technology and communications in Belgium. Smart, spunky and outspoken about women’s empowerment, Tubane is the epitome of the Rwandan woman today. Her brother Nduwawe is quieter in comparison.
After several entrepreneurial attempts, the siblings launched Tohoza in 2011, with only their savings. The website is an online advertising platform to help Rwandans find jobs, sell or rent homes and cars.
“We are determined to make the internet accessible to all Rwandans, including those who don’t have easy internet access and those who are not based in Kigali. We help people grow their business, and in turn, grow Rwanda’s economy,” says Tubane.
The siblings now want to replicate their success in Burundi, Kenya and Tanzania.
“Tohoza means ‘search and find’, like we did in our own life. I literally Tohoza-ed my brother,” laughs Tubane.
There is much they want to do, to change the face of online advertising in Rwanda, and also the perceptions of the country.
“One of the objectives of Tohoza is to tell a positive story, and show the world the new Africa. It is the generation after us that will make Rwanda a beautiful country,” says Nduwawe.
They have also launched a volunteer program where young people acquire practical skills on the field with them. In August last year, Tubane was honored as a young achiever by the Imbuto Foundation, an initiative of Rwanda’s First Lady Jeannette Kagame. Tubane also wants to start a foundation of her own for orphans. She only knows too well what it is like to be one.
“I have been with so many families in so many countries, but I was lucky, and always in good hands. No one harmed me.”
Tubane survived war, strife and separation. She now knows the purpose of this life granted to her.

Through  Hell To Prosperity

It is a Saturday afternoon and like many other shopping malls, this Johannesburg center is thronged with people running errands and lugging shopping bags. Escalators and elevators are full. At the tills bored tellers ring up purchases as snaking queues of customers wait their turn, while others push packed trollies through chaotic aisles.
One would be forgiven for mistaking this scene for the Christmas rush, except that this is a weekend in mid-January. The number of shopping malls mushrooming around the country and the expansion of shopping centers cannot keep up with South Africa’s insatiable consumer culture. Shopping has gone from being a fun to an arduous and time-consuming task. It is no surprise then, that 2013 saw the largest increase in online shopping. This trend is bound to continue in 2014.
“It’s true that e-commerce in South Africa is booming and it’s incredibly exciting to be part of this adventure, which is partly what drove me to relocate from Germany: the opportunity to be part of this evolution,” says Kalahari.com’s new CEO, Caren Genthner-Kappesz, who relocated to Cape Town last year to head up the online retailer.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-6047" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/WXW_6326-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
“There have been a number of new entrants to the market in the last few years, which is fantastic because the more players there are, the more innovation there will be, and the more reasons people will have to enjoy the benefits of shopping online.”
It is hard to believe that before 1999, the word Kalahari meant the desert located in the west of Southern Africa. Today, the word lends itself to a pioneer in South African online retail. Last year, the Online Retail Brands Report ranked Kalahari.com as South Africa’s leading online retail brand, ahead of Amazon. That global online giant has aggressively dominated the online retail market in the United States. It is currently establishing its global footprint with localized branches in Europe and South Africa. Kalahari’s timeous delivery and the ease with which online shoppers can order anything from appliances to beauty products, has placed the brand in a strong position, according to Acentric Marketing Research, the agency that compiled the report.
“Kalahari.com has managed to maintain our lead as South Africa’s number one online store, and we believe that the key to doing this is to always keep your customer at the core of your business. We are extremely sensitive to our customer base and utilize various means to maintain open dialogue with them and actively action necessary innovation to improve the kalahari.com experience.”
With nine years of experience as general manager at shopping.com and as a director and general manager for eBay Express, both in Germany, Genthner-Kappesz fine-tuned the customer experience. She has also worked as a chief operations officer at brands4friends, an eBay subsidiary and market leader in flash sales in Germany. Genthner-Kappesz, who holds a PhD in Mathematics, maintains that the human element is what drives Kalahari.com’s success.
“It’s also essential to have the right team, and I’m very proud to say that I believe I am supported by some of the best and brightest available.”
Spurred on by the growing online shopping environment in South Africa, fashion vendor Style36.co.za and online furniture retailer 5rooms.com launched ‘Cyber Monday’ this December, as the festive season shopping frenzy began. The initiative was based on ‘Black Friday’, the day after American Thanksgiving in the United States, when items are marked down to a fraction of their price. With the tagline ‘One Day. One Sale. One Massive Discount’, the South African version was an exclusively online sale that offered discounts of up to 80%.
The inaugural ‘Cyber Monday’ sale was a bold move by the two smaller retailers that became an effective advertising vehicle as more South Africans turn to online shopping. The furniture retailer 5rooms.com had their biggest sale day since the site was launched in 2012, while fashion retailer Style36.co.za saw a record of 100,000 visitors in 24 hours and became one of the most-visited websites in the country on the day.
Despite the boom in online shopping, retailers still face stiff competition from shops and have to be a step ahead.
“At the end of the day retail is retail, and pricing is a key element of that. Obviously online retailers need to plan and negotiate very carefully in order to offer value,” she says.
“We are very big on malls and we like to taste and touch and see and feel. The more you move down in the pyramid the more tactile they are with objects. They’re looking at the stitching on the shoe, they’re feeling the fabric for how thick it is. They’re testing the stitching, they’re yanking and pulling and you can’t do that online. I don’t think that the trust is there yet for online shopping, and that’s understandable because we don’t even trust the stores we’re going into, we’re still inspecting everything very closely,” says Genevieve van Vuuren at the Consumer Insight Agency
The Cape Town-based consumer trends analyst also recalls the challenges faced by a Kenyan client who established an online shoe shop. While the website had a fair share of visits, customers preferred to try on the shoes before buying them. This made the website more of an advertiser than a vendor.
“I think as a culture we’re getting there, especially with electronics and stationery and stuff that you don’t have to try on like clothing,” says van Vuuren.
Building trust and a desire to purchase are key to building an online presence. In aspirational cultures like South Africa, products that consumers can’t purchase in their home country are most popular, but this has its drawbacks.
Kalahari.com has launched a cellphone application that could prevent customers from ever wanting to leave their couches. The Kalahari.com Scan and Shop app allows customers to find the best deals by scanning the barcode of a book, DVD, CD or gadget they’re eyeing out in a shop. The app compares the shop’s price to that of the online retailer’s price. Following in the footsteps of Amazon, Kalahari also offers a mobile shopping app as well as its own e-book reader.
“We believe that mobile internet is really the future in South Africa and we aim to be at the forefront of this. A recent survey of our customer base indicated that over 95% of smartphone users either already use shopping apps or would consider doing so. The development of a proprietary app allows us to deliver a much more sophisticated user experience to the user and also opens up the native technologies of the device to us.”
Since joining Kalahari.com in March last year, Genthner-Kappesz has tried to harness the popularity of mobile internet in South Africa.
Smaller retailers have fewer resources to throw at advertising and consumer innovations rely heavily on word of mouth. My Sister’s Closet is a popular women’s fashion boutique in Johannesburg, owned by sisters Sharna and Louise Darko. The shop carved a niche for itself by offering London’s latest trends to Johannesburg’s fashionistas. Last year, the Darko’s felt that the only way to expand the shop was through cyberspace.
“Going online was a natural progression for us as we were avid online shoppers back home in the UK. That coupled with the emerging global trend of online shopping, we knew South Africa would soon be jumping on the bandwagon. We were already getting requests from our customers to courier items to them if they couldn’t get to the store,” says Sharna Darko.
In February 2013, the sisters launched their e-commerce website. While they entered a market that was already dominated by online clothing fashion stores, such as Zando.com as well as retail giants Mr Price, it was well received. After observing a noticeable dip in their boutique’s foot traffic, they decided to trade solely online from August of that year.
“I think the size of our business works in our favor as we’re able to add that personal touch to our customer service. We also offer exclusivity, as we’re not shifting thousands of units of the same item,” says Sharna Darko.
Many e-commerce websites are reaping the benefits of engaging online with their clientele. My Sister’s Closet actively uses social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, to communicate with their customers. The online fashion retailer also sponsors the wardrobes of popular television presenters. So, if a potential customer liked the kente cloth pencil skirt that they saw on the box, they can tweet the boutique. In minutes they’ll know about the availability of their size and will be directed to the online website – all from the comfort of their lounge. If the skirt is not the right fit, it can be easily returned without the hassle of an in-store exchange or the unforgiving harsh light of a fitting room.
Online retailers still need to build unfaltering consumer trust, as ultimately this will encourage customers to shop from the comfort of their homes rather than the inconvenience of bustling shopping malls. This means no pushing or shoving, no long queues when you have so many other things to do. One thing online retailers are getting right is that the customer’s time is limited.

Online’s Fine, So Manic Malls Decline

Daniel Guasco and Wayne Gosling left South Africa for the United Kingdom, but only met when they both returned to South Africa to do an MBA at the University of Cape Town. These two entrepreneurs launched South African group buying website Twangoo, which was purchased 125 days after it opened, by the global leader in the industry, Groupon.
The name Twangoo comes from a Chinese term Tuangou, which means ‘team buying’. The story goes that for years in China, several people would approach a vendor as a group to get discounts. This strategy has been recreated online and is a booming business, according to tech website webgeekly.com: “Websites like Groupon are making a killing by taking small percentages off each offer purchased.” Groupon is a portmanteau derived from ‘group’ and ‘coupon’.
Guasco and Gosling first got the idea after attending a launch at the Silicon Cape Initiative, in Cape Town. The event is based on Silicon Valley in California, where many global IT companies were born.
“At the launch, I saw a number of very successful online tech entrepreneurs and a lot of talk about what’s happening online. And I couldn’t write a word of code [and was] not tech-oriented in any way. Both our backgrounds are entrepreneurial [… ] In 2009, Groupon was just starting to come onto the radar and really becoming big in the States. And then on January 3, the evaluation of Groupon came out with a billion US dollars […] We then went on to form an alliance with some other MBA guys and formed a partnership with them to start up what was then known as Twangoo here in SA,” says Gosling.
With R10,000 ($1,130) between them, they launched Twangoo in 2010 and within 125 days they were bought out by Groupon for an undisclosed amount.
“The cool thing about Twangoo [and] Dan and I is that we’ve never met the guys that bought the website. We never met the guy that helped finance us. We only met afterwards, once we’d sold the business […] The developer is actually Russian. It shows it can be done if you put your mind to it,” says Gosling.
Groupon was launched in 2008 by Andrew Mason, a final-year university student, who had caught the eye of entrepreneur Eric Lefkofsky. He recognized Mason’s potential, after the student created a social initiatives platform, which evolved into Groupon.
“Ironically, when we started Groupon, we were thinking of it as this sort of discount site that will be the business model, the tail that wags the dog. But we hear from so many of our users how great it’s been for their lives, that it’s helping them get out of the house or the city and really enjoy their lives […],” Mason had said in an interview with ChicagoBusiness.com.
However, despite being CEO for four and a half years, Mason was fired in February, after the company had a number of disappointing quarterly earnings. The New York Times reported that Groupon was valued at $16.5 billion, when it went public in late 2011. By February, its value had dropped to $2.97 billion. Many shared the sentiment that Mason’s dismissal was long overdue.
On a global scale, however, Groupon is expanding—it has websites in 49 countries, but only one in Africa for the time being.
“It’s part of the bigger Groupon picture […] I think South Africa is still such a huge opportunity. I think the other challenge, as well, is mobile. We’ve launched quite a big initiative in South Africa around mobile,” says Guasco.
It hasn’t been a smooth ride starting an online-based business in a country such as South Africa, which, according to the World Bank, has 6.2 million internet users—12% of the population.
“Either the internet connection doesn’t work at home; it’s obviously very costly so it’s limited us to some degree, even though it’s taken off really well in this country. It’s still a challenge given that you need a smartphone type-enabled phone to really allow you to benefit to how Groupon is currently positioned,” says Gosling.
If they plan to expand across the continent, they need to take note of the other top nine internet users in Africa in 2012: Algeria, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia and Uganda
Groupon has a lot of competition in South Africa alone, which shows that the middle class is growing and spending.
<h4>Other Top Group Buying Sites In South Africa</h4>
• www.dealclick.co.za 
• www.ubuntudeal.co.za 
• www.studentspecials.net 
• www.salewine.co.za 
• www.wicount.co.za 
• www.citymob.co.za 
• www.24hoursonly.co.za 
• www.onedayonly.co.za 
• www.wekidunot.co.za 
• www.sacoupons.co.za 
• www.daddysdeals.co.za 
• www.cityslicker.co.za 
• www.collectivecow.com 
• www.ucit.co.za 
• www.schweetdeal.co.za 
• www.youdeal.co.za 
• www.vuvuplaza.co.za

Mob Shopping Makes  The Wallet Thicker

Mara.com is an offshoot project of the Mara Foundation, one of Africa’s largest non-profit social enterprises, which lends support to emerging African entrepreneurs at the forefront of their journey. Mara Online will be the continent’s first online mentorship network and will connect young, budding African entrepreneurs to established enterprises and businessmen.  “Mara.com will be a transformational project and will nurture an ecosystem for African entrepreneurs and youth while improving skills and emerging talent,” says Thakkar.
“The idea for the Mara Mentors site started as an offline venture by Mara Foundation. We mentored 120 companies but felt we could have more impact and reach more people across Africa and other emerging markets. Through this initiative we want to share knowledge and expertise with the next generation of business leaders in Africa. The mentees will be given guidance by some of the brightest and best minds in the industry who have already volunteered to be mentors.”
The Mara.com platform will have three dimensions to it: mentorship, jobs and dating.
Mara Mentors will put young African users in touch with well-established and successful entrepreneurs from across Africa—mentors who will offer insight, expertise and experience into a wide spectrum of industries. The mentors on the network will also provide mentees with access to networks and will transfer knowledge and experience to those who are up-and-coming in order to help them transform ideas into sustainable enterprises. At their own discretion, the mentors can at some point opt to meet in person with the mentees and provide support with funding and infrastructure.
Mara Jobs, on the other hand, will provide a user-friendly platform for employers and prospective employees across Africa to post jobs and resumes as well as to promote careers and employment opportunities across all industries.
“With more than 5,000 people employed across Mara Group’s companies, we understand the difficulties of the hiring process in Africa today. We want to use the knowledge we have gained and give the employers and the job seekers a better user experience,” says Thakkar.
Mara Dating will help young Africans find love and companionship. However, according to the Mara.com team, access to Mara Dating will only be possible after registering with Mara Mentors or Mara Jobs, thus attracting a wide spectrum of youth and inspiring the next generation of African entrepreneurship.
The website is being developed by designers and programmers in Silicon Valley, Bangalore, London, Dubai and a few cities in Africa. It will be free to all users, but the network’s complementary jobs and dating sites will utilize third party advertising and other revenue-generating models to financially support the platform. In addition, revenue generated from Mara.com will be channeled to the Mara Foundation towards financing its other social enterprise initiatives such as the Mara Launchpad (a group of business incubation centers across Africa), Mara Launch Funds (which provides small start-up funding for small businesses and start-ups across Africa) and the Mara Entrepreneurship Academy.
Thakkar tells me Mara.com will kick start some innovative initiatives. Considering that Africa is transiting from personal computers to smartphones, the website will base its foundation on mobile and feature phones to fully get adopted by the target audience. Mara.com is currently launching in Nigeria, but the platform will go live globally in December.
Thakkar started trading computers at age 14, after immigrating to Uganda following his escape from the 1994 Rwandan genocide with his family. He parlayed that small computer trading operation into a pan-African conglomerate, the Mara Group, which has interests in everything from real estate and tourism to financial services, information and communications technology, renewable energy and manufacturing, with revenues of around $100 million. Through his Mara Foundation, he says he gives back millions of dollars annually towards grooming and mentoring young African entrepreneurs.
“With Mara.com, I want to ensure that other successful African business leaders have a platform to groom and support young African leaders,” says Thakkar.
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ADAPTED FROM AN ARTICLE ON FORBES.COM

Tag: Online

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