Online Shopping in South Africa

The South African market is slowly moving to e-commerce as people start to see that the buying and selling of products and services online is of much more convenience. E-Commerce will continue to grow and surge business ahead in South Africa. As more and more people gain access to the internet and trust develops there will be a double-digit growth for the foreseeable future. The pandemic has jump-started in South Africa.

South Africa’s retail trade rose 2.3% from a year earlier in February 2021. It was the first gain in retail activity since March of last year amid the country’s Lockdown. 49% of South African internet users visited an online retail store, 47% of South African internet users searched online for a product or a service to buy and 29% bought something online (We Are Social, 2018). According to Bizcommunity (2019), the three most popular online shopping categories for South Africans who shop online were clothing 53%, entertainment/education 51% and even tickets 51%. Of course, now in the year 2021 the online shopping categories have grown because of the pandemic.

The number of employees working remotely for the past year has increased because of the pandemic. It is also clear that work-from-home opportunities are becoming common and work from home tech jobs are a sizeable portion of those opportunities. So, the market for online tech jobs has pretty much widen. 35% of all South African consumers now have shopping apps installed on their phone, compared to 30% in 2019 (See below graph).