Ask DigitalMall.com`s marketing and sales director Garin Toren about the latest developments of its recently launched grocery site, Click `n Pay, and he`ll reply, "We`re photographing lettuces."
That is to say, the company is putting together images of its products in anticipation of the upcoming addition of fresh and frozen foods to the Click `n Pay aisles, and according to Toren, would rather have an accurate projection of its offerings than rely on stock photography.
Although the site has only come under the e-commerce spotlight in the previous three weeks, it has actually been live for close to six months, and has slowly gained ground through word of mouth spread by accidental users; a marketing model that Toren delights in employing.
And though this may seem to be a comparatively slow way in which to acquire business, Toren says: "We`re in no hurry, because people in SA are not yet shopping online." He predicts that online shopping will only really start taking shape by year-end 2001.
In anticipation, DigitalMall.com is in the process of consolidating its services to provide what Toren describes as "massive added functionality". The company is adding new partners at a regular pace, the most recent of which is the online arm of Wordsworth Books, ID Books, and remodelling its style of doing business.
This includes the expansion of its "single/multi" approach to customer services; for example, DigitalMall.com shoppers have had access to multiple shops from a single access point. In future, Toren promises, customers will be able to have a single shopping basket catering for multiple shopping experiences, and a single payment transaction covering multiple purchases made at different shops within the DigitalMall.com domain.
The revamped DigitalMall.com should be live by May this year, although, in line with its osmosis model of marketing, Toren says active marketing should only commence around November.
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