South African consumers have embraced online shopping for their festive goodies this year, according to several e-retailers.
"Sales are up 100% compared to last year this time, and traffic on the Web site has also doubled," says Neil Smith, Take 2's marketing manager.
He attributes the growth to customers' familiarity with online shopping due to trust gained through the use of Internet banking.
Neil Watson, DigitalPlanet MD, says: "November and the first two weeks of December have seen record levels in sales for us. Traffic is growing monthly and page impressions per customer are up 50% year-on-year.
"We can see the demographics of our customers changing as women are slowly entering our market."
Watson attributes the growth to a maturing online shopping community in SA, due to broadband penetration. "People do not need to wait a long time for pages to download," he says.
Gillian Meier, Bidorbuy's business manager, says the online auction site has almost doubled its profits from last month. "South Africans are progressively becoming more open to letting their fingers do the walking when it comes to doing their festive shopping online."
Ryan Bacher, MD of NetFlorist, says: "Christmas shopping has been good so far this season; we have seen 35% growth from last year."
He adds that SA still has not seen the e-commerce rush associated with affordable broadband that was experienced in the US and UK. However, he is confident next year's online festive shopping will see more growth due to a rise in broadband penetration.
According to the e-tailers, demand has surged for a wide range of goods, from electronics to flowers, ahead of the festive season.
Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx, says: "The major stumbling block remains the online shopping experience, which is very poor for dial-up users. The rapid increase in broadband penetration will improve this experience, in general, over the next three years."
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