Global company Aramex Global Shopper (AGS) anticipates 57% customer growth for 2017, driven by an increase in cross-border online shopping.
Says the company: "The exponential growth of the AGS online shopping delivery service mirrors the rise of cross-border online shopping in SA, driven predominantly by people's desire for specialised products only available overseas."
AGS helps online shoppers by providing members with 22 personalised local addresses worldwide. When shopping cross-border, a user inputs the nearest AGS local address for delivery. The package is delivered to the address then costed for shipping according to its weight. It's then shipped, and the user is charged for any customs duties as well as the shipping fee once it lands in SA and directed to the user's actual address.
Mark Mahoney, manager of e-commerce services at Aramex, says: "People are increasingly seeing online shopping as a safe, convenient way to become fully fledged global citizens, with access to goods manufactured worldwide. More people are turning to personalised shipping services to eliminate concerns. In the second quarter of 2017, AGS shipment's quarter-on-quarter growth was 12.6%."
In the 2015/2016 fiscal year, AGS reported a 47% surge in shipment growth.
Mahoney notes popular online categories for global cross-border shoppers include clothing and apparel, consumer electronics, digital entertainment, education devices and cosmetics, mostly from the US, UK and China.
South African retailers are most certainly feeling the pinch of online shops digging into their market share.
Popular clothing stores Nine West and Mango (House of Busby) closed all stores countrywide in March due to portfolio performance being affected by the global shift to online shopping.
Stuttafords closed entirely from 1 August and the Edcon Group, holders of Edgars, Jet and Boardmans, have minimised the number of shops they have as market conditions have hardened.
A study from KPMG, "The Truth About Online Consumers", released earlier this year, indicated the EMEA market imports 50% of all online purchases from other regions, while the "PayPal and Ipsos Third Annual Cross-border Commerce Report for 2016" revealed 58% of online adults in SA are utilising online shopping in 2016, amounting to an estimated spend of R37.1 billion, and 53% of adults are considering increasing their online spending.
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