Online Retail in South Africa 2021, a research conducted by World Wide Worx -South Africa's leading independent technology market research organisation- reveals that in South Africa, online retail sales reached R30 billion in 2020. This represents 66% growth, and is a result of increase in demand for home deliveries brought about by the novel coronavirus.

Mastercard, a global pioneer in payment innovation and technology connecting billions of consumers, together with Standard Bank and Platinum Seed, also participated in the research process.

“The most astonishing aspect of this figure is that it is more than double the R14.1 billion reached in 2018, in just two years,” said Arthur Goldstuck, World Wide Worx MD, and principal analyst on the research project. He continued : “It is also 50% higher than the total forecast for 2020 three years ago, when online retail in South Africa was expected to reach R20 billion by 2020.”

Despite the boom in online sales, South African online market still remains largely untapped. Statista Market and Consumer data projected in 2020 that 31.6 million South Africans could resort to online shopping by 2024. But challenges lie ahead as data costs and internet accessibility acts as one of the biggest barriers for e-Commerce growth in South Africa and the continent in general.

According to the Pan-African e-Commerce Initiative, Africa is still very much less integrated with regional and international value chains, with the potential for improvement very limited. The need for improvement in this sector, however, is pertinent for making African products more competitive at national as well as international level.

Solange Che