15 Jan SOUTH AFRICA - A Mature Market With Good Online Payment Capability for MultiNational eCommerce Retailers - 2
This is the second in a series of articles that focuses on providing multinational eCommerce companies with comprehensive information on the South African eCommerce and Online Payments market. Popular online payment methods in South Africa are predominantly MasterCard and Visa credit and debit cards and then to a lesser extent SID Instant EFT and other mobile and alternative payment methods. The big retailers have an online presence and here is a list of some of the notable ones. Takealot is an online only and by far the biggest. Other online-only stores are Zando, Superbalist, Yuppiechef, Loot, Bid or Buy, Netflorist, Gumtree, and Faithful to Nature is up and coming. Here are some well known physical retail stores who are also selling online: Incredible Connection, Woolworths, Pick n Pay, Mr Price, Game, Makro, Edgars. Some high level stats are that internet penetration is around 65%, more than 50% of these have shopped online, making up 1% of retail and around 50% have bought cross border from sites like Amazon. South Africa has reached a tipping point for online shopping whereby consumer adoption, smartphone penetration, payment capabilities, and logistics and delivery are well sorted. So the opportunity for online brand retailers entering the market is good. Shopping using a smartphone is preferred to PC. The biggest online sales categories are fashion, books, and beauty products. A quarter of the online shoppers have purchased cross border from overseas websites, mainly from USA and then Europe. These stats are a little out of date but good indicators of the trend. More than 70% of South Africans have a bank account and I would suggest that Capitec Bank has significantly increased this. Between 10 and 20% of the population own a credit card and a guesstimate is that more than 50% are in possession of a scheme debit card. Not all debit cards are enabled for online purchases but increasingly so. Level of literacy is more than 90%. A retarding factor to online growth in eCommerce purchases with a debit card is that these are held mainly by lower income people and the cost of bandwidth is high in South Africa. More to come in our next article . . please click here if you are a multinational eCommerce company looking to enjoy an optimal payment experience with us across Africa =========================== Our thanks for stats, insights and inspiration to . . "The Mobile Economy - GSMA Intelligence." https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/research/?file=809c442550e5487f3b1d025fdc70e23b&download. Accessed 14 Oct. 2019. "Africa Month: How Africa is Shifting Market Frontiers Globally." 25 May. 2018, https://blog.euromonitor.com/africa-month-shifting-market-frontiers/. Accessed 22 Aug. 2019. "Africa B2C E-Commerce Market 2019, yStats.com." 19 Jun. 2019, https://www.ystats.com/market-reports/africa-b2c-e-commerce-market-2019/. Accessed 14 Aug. 2019. "Africa's emerging economies to take the lead in consumer market growth." 3 Apr. 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2019/04/03/africas-emerging-economies-to-take-the-lead-in-consumer-market-growth/. Accessed 16 Aug. 2019. "Africa's consumer market potential - Brookings Institution." 12 Dec. 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/research/africas-consumer-market-potential/. Accessed 16 Aug. 2019. "Africa and the Middle East, the Next Battleground for E ...." 20 Jun. 2019, https://fintechnews.ae/4444/fintech/africa-and-the-middle-east-the-next-battleground-for-e-commerce-companies/. Accessed 26 Nov. 2019.
