Electronic retailer Kalahari.net hopes to see revenue during the coming festive and back-to-school seasons spike by 70%, compared to the R21 million it turned over in the same period last year.
Kalahari.net CEO Hein Pretorius says a number of factors should contribute to the rise in revenue. These include the four interest rate cuts instituted by the SA Reserve Bank and an increased acceptance of electronic shopping by consumers.
"People should have more money in their pockets this Christmas as interest rates are now down to 10-year lows," he says. "However, it seems that people are also waiting to see if there are any more cuts."
While the prime-lending rate hovers around 12%, many economists and consumers are hoping the Reserve Bank`s Monetary Policy Committee will introduce another cut at its last meeting of the year on 10 and 11 December.
But this could mean an extremely short shopping season for Kalahari.net as most of its pre-Christmas sales are usually done by 16 December as consumers factor in the delivery timetables of getting gifts to loved ones.
Pretorius says the increase in Internet banking has helped stimulate e-tail shopping. "If the banks are right, then there are about two million people doing their banking over the Internet, and many of them have become increasingly comfortable with doing their shopping on the Web."
He says credit cards have dropped as the preferred means of payment from around 100% two years ago, to about 80% as Internet bank clients also use other payment means such as direct transfers.
Kalahari.net has installed a new search engine to speed up the search for goods and introduced a Kick-Back Club to reward customers almost instantaneously for their patronage.
Pretorius says Kalahari.net ships on average 1 500 parcels per day, each containing around three items, and this usually spikes to about 2 500 parcels per day over the festive season.
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