Takealot versus Amazon — tech prices compared

While ordering tech products through Amazon in the US can mean a long wait for your items to arrive, a MyBroadband analysis has revealed that it is often cheaper than ordering through South African ecommerce giant Takealot.

Industry sources have told MyBroadband that Amazon is planning to launch a marketplace in South Africa.

Leaked documents obtained by Business Insider US showed that the international retail giant plans to expand to five new countries in Africa, South America, and Europe.

Its plan to roll out in South Africa and Nigeria is reportedly codenamed “Project Fela”.

Amazon will reportedly launch its Prime service in South Africa shortly after its marketplace becomes available.

However, until Amazon launches in the country, South Africans will have to order directly from the US store and pay customs and shipping costs.

Of ten items compared, Takealot is cheaper for three products, while importing the seven others from Amazon in the US is more affordable.

Ordering through Takealot offered significant savings on items such as the JBL Flip 5 waterproof Bluetooth speaker, Galaxy S22 Ultra 256GB, and 49-inch Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 gaming monitor.

The JBL Flip 5 costs R489 less when ordered through Takelot, while ordering the Galaxy S22 Ultra and 49-inch Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 gaming monitor through the South African ecommerce giant will save you R2,536 and R3,303, respectively.

However, Amazon offers better prices on a range of other tech products.

Ordering a GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card with 12GB of memory through Amazon will save you over R10,000.

A 3-pack of TP-Link Deco AX3000 Wi-Fi 6 Mesh routers costs R5,589, including shipping and customs costs, compared to R8,305 when ordered through Takealot.

South Africans can also save R1,003 when buying an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X desktop processor through Amazon. The international retail giant is shipping the processor to South Africa for a total cost of R7,996. It costs R8,999 from Takealot.

Amazon also offers Bang & Olufsen H95 headphones for a total cost of R16,931 — R2,068 less than Takealots price tag of R18,999.

For the comparison, we selected items on Amazon that ship directly to South Africa, using its shipping calculator to determine the total cost of buying and delivering the product.

However, there is a workaround for items that aren’t available to ship directly to South Africa.

This involves using a shipping service such as MyUS, which uses an address in a foreign country to which the retailer will deliver. They will then forward the item to your address in South Africa.

MyUS’s services are based on order weight, starting at $16.99 (R276) for items that weigh less than 1lb (540g).

The pricing of ten tech items, available from both Takealot and Amazon, are compared in the table below.

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