Online shopping portal Superbalist has aligned its content and commerce strategy with LLM-driven discovery.
The company, spun out of Takealot in September 2024 after revenue pressure from companies like Temu and Shein, is betting on generative engine optimisation (GEO) to attract e-shoppers.
As IDC predicts companies will spend up to five times more on large language model optimisation than traditional search engine optimisation (SEO) by 2029, an analyst warns that companies that don't adopt GEO risk having to shutter their doors.
Globally, Amazon, Walmart and Zalando are experimenting with generative engine strategies, but Superbalist is claimed to be among the first in Africa to align its approach with LLM-driven discovery.
Strategic move
GEO helps the platform appear in AI-generated answers, reach shoppers across multiple categories, and drive visibility in emerging generative search tools, Superbalist explains.
“We view the move towards agentic commerce as a fundamental change rather than a fad,” CTO Ashley Martin tells ITWeb. “We’re investing now to ensure that, as organic search inevitably shrinks, our agentic share grows to more than make up for it.”
The Cape Town-based platform is updating category structures, editorial strategy and keywords across branded and non-branded content, to stay visible in tools like ChatGPT, Google’s Search Generative Experience and Perplexity.
It’s targeting high-intent queries, such as “buy Mango clothing South Africa”, “same-day delivery fashion Johannesburg” and “AI-powered personal styling South Africa”.
Martin says the company can’t disclose GEO’s impact on sales volume but notes: “We’re closely watching the shift in traffic composition. We anticipate that agentic visibility and agentic commerce will likely cannibalise traditional organic traffic… We do see and track traffic originating from LLMs, but it’s still early days... too soon to call out any material changes.”
Tough market
Superbalist, with over 4.5 million monthly users and more than 50 000 products, was sold by Takealot to a consortium led by Blank Canvas Capital in September 2024.
Once a top South African online clothing retailer, its growth slowed to 7% gross merchandise value in June 2024. No newer figures are available, as Blank Canvas Capital is unlisted.
By comparison, the overall online retail sector reached R71 billion turnover in 2023. World Wide Worx, in collaboration with Mastercard, Peach Payments and Ask Afrika, projected that e-commerce turnover will exceed R130 billion by end-2025, capturing nearly 10% of total retail.
Online retail grew 35% in 2024 to R96 billion, or 8% of total retail sales, research shows. Growth continued through 2025 at an annualised 38%, far outpacing physical stores at 2.5% in 2024 and 1.6% by mid-2025, the World Wide Worx study indicates.
World Wide Worx CEO Arthur Goldstuck said in September the findings mark a turning point. “Online retail has moved from being an experiment on the margins, to a structural force in the economy. Nearly R1 in every R10 spent at retail will now be online.”
Superbalist’s slower growth partly stems from international retailers entering the local market with low-cost products, mostly manufactured in China, offering free shipping once customers reach a specified basket value.
The ‘in’ thing
IDC says SEO once determined rankings, but now LLMs shape which brands appear in conversations and product suggestions. “This isn’t a technical adjustment. It’s a strategic reset,” it noted in September.
Gartner predicted as long ago as 2024 that search engine volume will drop 25% by 2026 due to AI chatbots and virtual agents.
Gartner VP analyst Alan Antin commented: “Organic and paid search are vital channels for tech marketers seeking to reach awareness and demand generation goals. GenAI solutions are becoming substitute answer engines, replacing user queries that previously may have been executed in traditional search engines.”
Goldstuck notes GEO is an essential approach to commerce strategy. “Announcing it as a differentiator feels very 2025, but at least they're now in tune with the AI times.”
Belgium Campus iTversity researcher Jacqui Muller, who is starting GEO company VEX Business, to help small companies compete, says GEO could hurt small businesses that don’t implement it, as companies like Temu have already embraced it.
“GEO rewards scale over accuracy, meaning smaller or niche businesses often lose out. Companies that publish large volumes of well-structured content are more likely to appear in AI-generated answers,” Muller says.
However, this creates credibility problems if delivery or service is limited, as shoppers will switch to outlets that deliver on promises.
AI also makes mistakes, Muller notes. “AI can recommend products retailers don’t stock, misstate delivery times, or show outdated catalogues.”
Companies implementing GEO must have content integrity – clear sources for products, geographic grounding, and alignment between online claims and actual capabilities, adds Muller.
“For Superbalist, GEO isn’t a marketing shortcut but an architectural priority, and doing it responsibly is fast becoming a competitive advantage.”
Share