Episode 14: E-commerce in South Africa
Listen (25 min, 37 seconds)In this week's episode we delve into the South African E-commerce industry to see where they've come in the past ten or so years. Ten years ago the buzz was all about virtual reality malls and how we would all be traversing these malls with VR glasses. The reality of online shopping though is that it is simply a virtual version of home shopping. You pick an item out of a catalogue and it gets delivered in a few days. Amazon is the leading retailer in the world with over five billion dollars worth of sales in 2008 so there is definitely a market for online shopping. Locally however, the industry seems stifled and limited to buying expensive laptops or cheap flowers. There is plenty of noise from smaller providers but no variation from these providers.
We speak to Justin Drennan of Wantitall, Yaron Assabi of Digital Mall, Darren Mclean from Pushplay and Jason Mordechai of Fevertree. They give us the low down on what is really happening in the South African E-commerce industry.
These four online stores, of various sizes, give us an understanding of the world behind the storefront. We find out what it takes to put a store together, whether you could build one from your bedroom, the marketing involved and why South Africa is so sheltered in terms of online shopping options.
Should you buy online or not? Listen to this episode to decide
Guests:
Justin Drennan:
Justin's expertise are in the database and data warehousing sector but now can be found fighting with customs on a regular basis. He runs Wantitall, South Africas largest importer of goods from Amazon.com. If you want something exotic, this is the place to come look.
Yaron Assabi:
Yaron is an entrepreneur with a passion for ICT and have been consulting in the ICT industry for the past 16 years in the US, UK and South Africa.
He is the founder of what is known today as the Digital Solutions Group (DSG) but started in 1998 as Digital Mall (Pty) Ltd trading as Digitalmall.com Today, DSG focuses on relationship marketing solutions using multi- channel commerce. Over the past few years they have launched new niche services and group companies based on their success which now makes up the Digital Solutions Group (www.dsg.co.za) .
Darren Mclean:
Darren is a graphic designer by training. McLean came back to SA four years ago after almost a decade in London. He'd worked in a variety of design-related areas, moving from product design (like designer ice buckets for Chivas Regal) and computer graphics (huge murals for Gatwick Airport's North Terminal) to what he enjoys most: designing systems.
Jason Mordechai:
Jason is the owner of Fevertree, a South Africa online store that sells an exciting range of health products designed to keep you fit and healthy, lose weight and a whole lot more. They ship products both locally and internationally and have been trading for over five years now.
Links:
Wantitall: http://www.wantitall.co.za/
Digital Mall: http://www.digitalmall.com/
Pushplay: http://www.pushplay.co.za/
Fevertree: http://www.fevertree.za.com/
Mike Stopforth: http://www.mikestopforth.com/
Cape Town Daily Photo: http://www.capetowndailyphoto.com/
Jarred Cinman: http://jarredcinman.com
Saul Kropman: http://saulk.co.za
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