South Africa beats US in Amazon tech price battle

Ordering tech products through Amazon’s South African marketplace is generally cheaper than ordering them from the e-commerce giant’s US store. However, there are exceptions.

Amazon launched its South African marketplace on 7 May 2024, and early price comparisons between the local and US stores revealed that it was generally still cheaper to order products from the US.

At launch, the online retailer supported a network of 3,000 pickup points and allowed customers to receive order updates through WhatsApp.

It also offers 24-hour email and live chat support, while its call centres servicing South Africa operate from 06:00 until midnight daily.

Customers displeased with their order can submit a return within 30 days. Amazon SA provides several return options, including home pickup and self-drop.

Amazon’s Sub-Saharan managing director, Robert Koen, said the key to the retailer’s success in South Africa will be its focus on customers rather than the competition.

“We definitely don’t focus on what our competitors are doing. We’ve found that a successful formula is if we really obsess about our customers,” said Koen.

“That’s where our focus will be, on the customer, not on the competitor.”

While many experts believe Amazon will launch its Prime membership in South Africa, it has yet to do so. Koen said the company is ironing out specifics for launching Prime locally.

In the US, Amazon Prime subscribers get benefits like free two-day deliveries, access to streaming service Prime Video, and several other perks.

MyBroadband compared pricing for ten tech products common to both Amazon marketplaces and found that South African residents will generally get lower pricing when ordering through the local marketplace.

However, there are exceptions. For example, it is still cheaper to buy a Razer Basilisk V3 gaming mouse, Nintendo Switch Lite, and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 through the US store and have it shipped to South Africa.

Although products ordered from the US take significantly longer to deliver, the wait times aren’t excessive, with the longest being 14 business days.

South Africans can save roughly R300 by ordering the Razer mouse through Amazon’s US marketplace and just over R400 on the Nintendo Switch Lite.

At the same time, they can save nearly R5,000 when ordering the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 from the US and shipping it to South Africa.

Amazon’s US store also offers lower pricing for the Asus AX1100 ROG Rapture gaming router. Ordering it from the US marketplace will save you roughly R1,600 over ordering it from Amazon’s local store.

However, the Amazon South Africa marketplace was cheaper for six of the ten products compared, including the Xiaomi Mi Box S, Samsung Galaxy A25 5G, Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones, and Asus ROG Ally Z1 512GB.

It also offers substantially lower pricing for the 32-inch Samsung M7 4K monitor. However, this is largely due to shipping costs when ordering from the US.

Amazon.co.za charges R7,816.20 for the monitor, and while it is priced only slightly higher on the Amazon US marketplace, the import costs amount to nearly the same price as the monitor itself.

The table below compares pricing for ten tech products common to the Amazon South Africa and Amazon US marketplaces.