E-commerce

Internet access

With a population of 55.9 million people, South Africa is experiencing a boom in internet access, totaling roughly 28.5 million online users in 2017. However, the penetration rate of 50% is still low when compared to other developed countries. Although there are about 29 million smartphones in use in South Africa, only 21 million devices access the internet. The number of users connecting only through mobile is 7 million. Almost two-third of South African internet users access the internet daily, while only 4% do it less than once per month. Google is the most popular web search engine in the country, with a market share of 93.6%, followed by Bing and Yahoo, at 4.7% and 1.4% respectively.

E-commerce market

The e-commerce market is constantly growing in South Africa: e-commerce revenue across all product categories was estimated at US$ 2.69 billion in 2017, at around 1% of total retail sales. Among the major players in the country’s market are South Africa’s biggest online fashion store Zando; Takealot (a platform that offers a wide range of products, including home entertainment, kitchen appliances, toys, books, personal care goods, etc.); the online auction site and marketplace Bid or Buy; Next and Spree in the fashion industry; Loot for electronics. Online shoppers are increasingly opting to make purchases on their mobile devices, with a preference for apps over mobile websites. Cross-border online spending is common: according to a research by Ipsos, an estimated 1.4 million South Africans online shoppers purchased from foreign websites, the main drivers encouraging them to buy cross-border being free shipping, availability of local currency for payment and secure ways to pay, together with the possibility to buy products that are not available in South Africa. The main countries of origin for online-purchased products were the U.S., China and the U.K.

E-commerce sales and customers

Electronics and media are currently the leading product category, accounting for US$ 964.2 million, followed by furniture and appliances, which generate US$ 553.7 million in sales. Downloadable digital entertainment and education items together with event tickets are among the most popular online categories too. The e-commerce market is expected to grow to US$ 4.7 billion by 2021. However, there are a few notable issues that currently stand in the way of an even more robust e-commerce growth in the country, in particular product delivery problems as a result of high delivery fees and dropshipping. A research commissioned by PayPal to Ipsos shows that 58% of online adults in South Africa shopped online over the past 12 months. Four main factors influenced South African consumers’ attitudes and intentions to shop at a particular online store again: the choice of products and the price at which the products are offered; a friendly portal (with navigation aids that help shoppers easily find what they are looking for); security of payments and delivery reliability. 7% of South African shoppers spend less than 30 minutes online, compared to 12% who spend up to an hour, 22% who spend 1 to 2 hours, 18% who spend 2 to 3 hours, and 42% who spend 3+ hours online. 60% of online shoppers in South Africa buy via desktop, and 55% and 38% often shop via mobile and tablet respectively (Statista). Most South African consumers prefer to pay with credit cards (45%). Other common payment methods include debit cards (21%) and bank transfer (20%), followed by PayPal (7%). The remaining methods account for less than 8% of total online payments (i.e. cash on delivery, gift card, etc.).

Social media

In South Africa, around 32% of the population makes use of social media platforms. Of these, 13 million users do so purely from mobile, with a 24% penetration rate. The increase between 2016 and 2017 has been notable, with an additional 2 million (15%) new active social media users, and 3 million (30%) new active social users on mobile. With almost 16 million users, Facebook is the most utilised social media platform, followed by YouTube (8.7 million) and Twitter (8 million). Instagram sees adoption from just over 3.8 million users, while the professional social networking platform LinkedIn has 6.1 million users. Looking at Facebook, the 18-24 and 25-34 age groups are by far the largest groups of users, with a similar trend for other social networks.