Massmart says the significant investment it has made into overhauling its mobile-first strategy is paying off – as more local shoppers take to the Game and Makro e-commerce platforms.
Massmart, which owns brands such as Game, Makro, Builders, Cambridge Foods, among others, has significantly accelerated its technological capabilities over the past year, as part of a multimillion-dollar investment made to expand its e-commerce channels.
The investment saw Massmart going on a hiring spree and increasing its team of software engineers from 28 to around 300, with its local product management team also growing from seven employees to over 30.
Some of the major technology releases which have been delivered through the investment include the revamped Game website, the new Makro shopping app and the group’s new advanced store employee fulfilment online application called Global Integrated Fulfilment.
US-based e-commerce giant, Walmart bought a 51% stake in Massmart in 2011, and is currently in a bid offering to buy-out the minority remaining shareholders of Massmart.
“Since launching the new website, Game has successfully doubled its sales conversion rate and revenue – showcasing that more South Africans are shopping with Game online,” explains Shilpan Bhagat, Walmart’s head of e-commerce product and technology for Africa, based in Silicon Valley, California.
“The Makro shopping app now accounts for a significant portion of the brand’s e-commerce revenue, following its launch in July. The new Makro pantry and liquor shopping experiences on the app have been a great hit with customers, and both of these categories continue to grow at triple digits.”
Billed as the second largest retail group in Africa after Shoprite, Game has undergone constant reform and innovation to ensure it’s in line with evolving consumer needs.
Massmart’s digital strategy, he adds, is informed by a 360-degree holistic framework, pioneered by Walmart, with priorities focused on enhancing the performance of its websites, evolving towards mobile-first solutions, expanding into on-demand and same-day deliveries, and strengthening and revamping its fulfilment services.
Bhagat points out that it is the combination of both Walmart and local expertise that has helped deliver this mobile-first shopping experience and also uses less-mobile data and memory on users’ devices.
“We have been able to leverage the strengths and capabilities that Walmart has already developed in other more mature e-commerce markets around the world. With the support of hundreds of dedicated e-commerce software engineers at Walmart’s Global Tech hub in Bangalore, India, we have adopted some of these capabilities into the South African market over the past year.”