Online retail grows by leaps and bounds

24.01.2005
Von Theo Boshoff

Is retail therapy moving online? It seems as if the luxury of the physical shopping experience -- walking the malls and entering shops -- is fast becoming a dying thing. Is it due to the lack of time and a fast-paced world, or just because online shopping has become so very convenient?

According to some local online retailers, shopping over the ?Net is still growing by leaps and bounds.

E-Bucks.com CEO, Lezanne Human, says: ?I am bowled over by our figures. It shows that our online shopping sales have doubled year-on-year since we introduced it, and by 90 percent over the holiday season. Over December 2003 we recorded spending of R6.2 million (US$1 million) in e-bucks in our e-bucks shop, and this past December it rose to R9 million. This excludes other e-bucks transactions, like using the e-bucks card at our fourteen partner shops. Our November sales grew by 100 percent.?

Digital Planet corroborates this growth trend. The company?s GM responsible for marketing, Warren Moss, says: ?Online sales in general increased by over 85 percent during this past festive season compared to 2003, and sales of digital cameras increased by over 300 percent. It has been an unbelievable year!?

The company recorded an overall sales turnover increase of 60 percent during 2004. Kalahari.net?s sales over the festive season are yet another indication of the growth of online retail. Kalahari says that its online sales increased by 32 percent compared to the same period in 2003 (October to December).

?Judging by the increase in online transactions experienced by kalahari.net this festive season, it is safe to say that online shopping is alive and well in SA,? says Gary Hadfield, commercial manager of kalahari.net.

According to Hadfield, this is due to a number of new initiatives that the company has launched.

?Throughout the year, kalahari.net introduced several new shops and other changes to gear up for the festive season. We introduced Express Checkout, which means that customers can complete a transaction in just two clicks; we introduced 24-hour delivery on top products, and free delivery on orders over R250. We also opened an electronics shop that caters for the ever-increasing demand for home electronics and gadgets,? he says.

The 24-hour delivery option, notes Hadfield, as well as the newly introduced physical gift vouchers and existing e-vouchers, largely contributed to the strong trading in the last weeks before Christmas. ?Forty per cent of vouchers sold in December were sold within the last five days before Christmas,? he says.

Moss says the site?s growth is due to increased consumer confidence, people being more trusting of online transactions and Internet access being cheaper.

Human also notes that e-bucks? member base grew by 22 percent over 2004, and credits this to people feeling more secure about online shopping and increased realization of its convenience. She, however, predicts only a 50 percent growth for the coming December period, but highlights that she has been stunned by the growth in the past, and that anything is possible.

Kalahari.net reports that books, music and DVDs were still its best-selling categories, whilst digital cameras were Digital Planet?s hottest selling product. Airtime (prepaid and contract), vouchers and lottery tickets, are still e-bucks? favorites, according to Human.

Back to school is the next phase for kalahari.net. According to Hadfield it offers schoolbooks and text books in more than 50 categories. He also notes that the e-tailer has a partnership with Woolworths and Waltons through the My School program, focusing on making the back to school period easy and stress-free for parents.

?If this is an indication of SA online retail, any online portal that is getting its security, products and services right, and providing proper fulfilment, cannot go wrong,? Human concludes.