Consumer behaviour and online trends in South Africa:
Talking about the shopping trends and consumer behaviour market of South Africa, people still like to visit malls and get their shopping done.
Statistically speaking, traditional businesses and brick and mortar stores are yet not transitioning to a brick and click model as the majority of sales and profits currently are coming from offline sales.
But, by looking at the history books and with the recent e-commerce trends and global digitalization drive, businesses that are vulnerable to online stores can face serious problems if they continue with offline sales and traditional business models.
For instance, stores in the US such as Radio Shack, Sears, the Limited and other such brands have faced severe competition and some have also led to shutdowns since 2017.
Thus, looking at the world history and the trends of online businesses across the globe, South African businesses may have to face similar consequences if they do not make the transition.
What do the numbers suggest?
Looking at the things statistically, it was found that South Africans visit malls at least once a week. But, the South African market has observed a great online penetration in various domains wherein the year 2021 alone, 35% of the population of South Africa have made at least one online purchase. (Source)
As far as the domains that are doing well online are concerned, Fashion and apparel domains observe the highest number of sales i.e. up to 32% of the total eCommerce revenue!
Apart from that, businesses from electronics and media, furniture and appliances and food and personal care businesses also have a huge online demand in South Africa.
The scope is for all!
Judging by these segments, it can be assumed that South African customers of B2Cbusinesses are slowly and gradually moving towards online purchases and that in the future can shape the overall consumer behaviour of the region.
Apart from that, the rich natural resources and affordable resource availability of South Africa has also opened its doors to the global market and businesses from around the world are looking planning to establish a trade with South African businesses.
Thus, for those businesses that have a long-term vision and for those B2B enterprises that want to expand their business globally, they must think about e-commerce and marketplace solutions that can help them create an early and strong digital presence.
Apart from these reasons, there are many other benefits of having a customized e-commerce business that aligns with your business goals and customer expectations. To help you make informed decisions, we are listing a few of those benefits below:
Benefits of personalized e-commerce platform to the South African businesses:
- Customers can have all-time access to business:
When you have a digital presence, you can provide access to the products or services of the business to your customers on their smartphones. Not only does that provide a 24/7 window of sales to the businesses, but it can also mean that you can establish connections with the customers via emails and notifications.
- No geographical boundaries:
For those businesses that wish to make the world their target market and want to expand their business, having a strong digital presence with an e-commerce platform can be the essential first step without significant preliminary expenses.
With the e-commerce platform enterprises can help reach their customers with minimal resources and can also include local vendors and partners of the target market if you have a multi-vendor marketplace.
Thus, you not only save on operations and infrastructure, but you can also create tactical partnerships and expand your business in the least possible time and effort.
- Tangible marketing results:
One of the biggest advantages of having a digital presence is the ability to run traceable marketing campaigns and get tangible marketing results with digital marketing.
With AI and data-driven technology platforms, you can measure the reach and impact of your marketing campaigns and run data-driven paid marketing campaigns.
Along with effective planning and traceable campaigns, digital marketing compared to conventional marketing is cost-effective and personalized.
With digital campaigns, marketers can custom-tailor their campaigns to reach a specific target audience at the right time with the right product.
- Data-driven business decisions:
Taking about tangible and data-driven decisions, businesses can get accurate and data-driven customer behaviour insights that can help with layout, product planning as well as technology innovation.
With the help of data analytics, an enterprise can better understand the customer expectations and based on that customize their UI and business processes to ensure that they can get optimum lead conversion ratio and profitability in their business.
- Personalized user experiences:
Personalization is the future of the retail market and with e-commerce platforms; a brand can provide micro-personalized experiences to their customers.
Not only are the product recommendations personalized, but based on prior purchases and experiences, marketers can also deliver personalized marketing messages and promotional schemes as well as personalized emails to the customers.
- Increased brand credibility:
Talking about the global B2B and retail brand market, the customer segment that has the highest purchasing power is the millennial people and the generation that will have the highest purchasing power in the future will be Gen Z or the internet generation.
Both these generations rely more on search engines and the internet for product or brand recommendations and if you do not have a strong brand presence online, there is a possibility that your brand might become a legacy brand in the future.
- Web-to-print integration for innovations and customization:
Irrespective of whether your business is offline or online, whether your business is B2C or B2B, to ensure that your business is relevant to your customer, you must upgrade your products and service according to the customer’s expectations.
But, constant innovation drive can prove to be capital intensive for most brands especially if they run a conventional offline business. If you have a personalized e-commerce store, you can integrate a web-to-print solution with your web platform to employ the power of product personalization.
The web-to-print solution can let the customers of any business customize or design the product without the need for graphical expertise. All the retail businesses such as apparel businesses, gifting businesses, artwork designing businesses, textile businesses and other such business domains can employ product customization capabilities in their business with a web-to-print solution.
It all boils down to the correct technology partner:
Getting a personalized and user-friendly e-commerce platform is the best way to ensure that a business can transition from a brick and mortar business model to brick and click or online business.
But, to ensure that the e-commerce platform aligns with your business goals and provides an optimum return on investment, you must search for an e-commerce development partner that also provides web-to-print solutions and also has a proven track record of successfully serving your business domain.
