Liquor.co.za, an online shopping website for alcohol, has launched, with the aim to shake-up SA’s growing online delivery services market.
According to its founders, the e-tailer was born out of the need for an e-commerce portal that can service both direct-to-customer (B2C) and high-volume business-to-business (B2B) requirements, through a collaboration of the founding team’s liquor industry expertise and online experience.
Cape Town-based Liquor.co.za, which went live yesterday, forms part of bar and beverage business Cascade Holdings, the brain child of entrepreneurs Adam Chaskalson, Tyrone Lasarow, Shaun Duwe and Allen Jaffe.
Chaskalson and Lasarow previously owned one ofCape Town’s largest mobile bar companies, and have experience on the product-development and logistics side, while Duwe has an in-depth understanding of how SA’s alcohol and entertainment landscape fits together.
Jaffe is part of a team that heads up eComplete, an e-commerce solutions firm that helps local retailers and small businesses build and maintain an online store.
The new liquor portal comes as SA’s e-commerce sales reached a tipping point last year, growing by 66% to total online retail revenue of R30.2 billion, according to research firm World Wide Worx.
Chaskalson believes there is still a gap in the South African e-shopping market for this type of offering, as the food and beveragetrade is still mainly ordering using a frustrating, antiquated, archaic mechanism, which still includes fax.
“Since COVID-19, the world has moved to online platforms when it comes to meetings, shopping and anything that gives people a sense of security in terms of not being in crowds or having to drive somewhere. Liquor, in particular, is something that should be easy to order from the comfort of your home,” he comments.
The team of entrepreneurs created two separate websites under the Liquor.co.za domain.
“The B2C interface is exciting, but the B2B side perhaps even more so. Our platform will enable businesses to order using a self-service approach with easy-to-use functionality, which in the past hasn’t been available,” Duwe points out.
Food and beverage managers can login to the back-end portal, select their own products and volumes, or re-order their last order.
According to Duwe, Liquor.co.za is not driven by traditional liquor retailers trying to do e-commerce for the first time, nor is it being run by digital specialists who are just making a go at the liquor market with no skin in the game.
“It is a wholly online-only offering for the local liquor market, run by professionals with pedigree in the liquor trade as well as the digital landscape. Essentially, tech is one part of the puzzle, but supply, merchandising and customer support are all crucial too,” says Duwe.
President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday announced the lifting of the alcohol ban – a huge relief to industry players, after alcohol sales were banned several weeks ago, as part of the COVID-19 regulations.
In 2019, the alcohol sector accounted for 3.4% (R173 billion) of South Africa's nominal GDP, according to the South African Liquor Brand Owners’ Association.
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