Mauritius vs SA

[bwana]

Want to see yet another illustration of the difference between a country with affordable internet access and one without (SA is the one without in case you were wondering).

http://www.finance24.com/articles/b...?Nav=ns&lvl2=buss&ArticleID=1518-1786_1752565

Visa says that Mauritius topped Africa's online shopping "with 884 969 transactions valued at R794.41m" in the 12 months ending June 30 2005. South Africans on the other hand made "89 050 e-commerce purchases valued at a total of R84.46m".

Sure the GDP of Mauritius is slightly higher ($500 per capita) but that wouldn't account for their spending more than r700 million more in a year.

Perhaps some of the online merchants should focus the might of their advertising budget on Telkom and put them under the spotlight.

 

[arf9999]

I think that this might also have to do with the lack of range of items available in Mauritius "bricks 'n mortar" stores. But it is interesting. Some entrepreneurs here should be targeting this market. It must be cheaper to ship to Mauritius from SA than from Europe/States etc..

 

[bwana]

I think that this might also have to do with the lack of range of items available in Mauritius "bricks 'n mortar" stores. But it is interesting. Some entrepreneurs here should be targeting this market. It must be cheaper to ship to Mauritius from SA than from Europe/States etc..

They often run on a worldwide rate as far as shipping goes.

Course if you look at the numbers, the population of Mauritius is 1/40th of SA's yet they spent 10x more. Average their spending at r530 per person and you're talking about some serious spending. Coincidentally they've got a much higher percentage of people with internet access (source CIA world fact book).

Telkom is holding this county back - plain and simple - people can deny this at their own peril.

 

[dominic]

Want to see yet another illustration of the difference between a country with affordable internet access and one without (SA is the one without in case you were wondering).

http://www.finance24.com/articles/b...?Nav=ns&lvl2=buss&ArticleID=1518-1786_1752565

Visa says that Mauritius topped Africa's online shopping "with 884 969 transactions valued at R794.41m" in the 12 months ending June 30 2005. South Africans on the other hand made "89 050 e-commerce purchases valued at a total of R84.46m".

Sure the GDP of Mauritius is slightly higher ($500 per capita) but that wouldn't account for their spending more than r700 million more in a year.

Perhaps some of the online merchants should focus the might of their advertising budget on Telkom and put them under the spotlight.

might well be that there are one or two acquiring banks doing offshore credit card processing business in Mauritius...especially something like online gambling which tends to distort figures because the gambling transactions themselves are often disguised as general e-commerce transactions so that they do not get blocked by the card associations (VISA, Matercard etc) (remembering that it mostly illegal to bet online with a credit card in the USA - the world's largest online betting community - and that this is enforced thru assigning merchant category codes to different kind of transactions)..not sure what the law in this regard is in Mauritius but imagine it is open and this kind of "mis-coding" is very difficult to pick up if done well

mind you i have heard that there is at least one major bank doing this in SA (which afaik is illegal in SA)

 

[bwana]

@ dominic - which fishermans arms are you at? The name sounds so familiar.

 

[dominic]

its a pub/restaurant in kommetjie outside cape town...will have to change location all too shortly