The one thing you should not buy from Amazon in South Africa

Although many products on Takealot can be found for cheaper on Amazon.com, there is one category of tech devices that you should avoid importing with the US shopping giant altogether — monitors.

With Takealot being South Africa’s largest online store and Amazon the world’s biggest, both offer a wide range of tech products that are often cheaper than when bought from physical retailers.

Many eager tech enthusiasts have found that importing using Amazon, particularly when the rand is performing well against the dollar, can potentially save you thousands of rand.

Amazon makes it convenient to order from its US store, as it calculates the cost of any import taxes, duties, VAT, and shipping and includes this in the amount you pay.

The only cost not reflected in the final price is the banking fee that you could be charged for international transactions, which is typically between 2-2.75% of the transaction’s value.

We decided to compare prices of the same products in various popular tech categories on Takealot and Amazon.com to see how they stacked up.

The table below shows the findings of our comparison.

In many instances, importing using Amazon was indeed cheaper than shopping local.

However, when it came to monitors, Takealot’s prices were much better.

This is because imported monitors are slapped with a significant ad valorem (luxury) tax of 7% on top of a 25% import duty.

From Takealot, a Dell 27-inch P2719H Full HD monitor would cost you R4,349, while the same monitor is priced at R8,558 from Amazon.com.

Two categories that we were not able to compare were laptops and TVs, as the same products were not available from both stores.

Although certain laptop models were available from both, their specific configurations in terms of RAM or storage would differ, with no options to change this to match.

However, typically buying laptops from Amazon was cheaper than through South African stores.

Delivery times 

Because Takealot has local warehouses and services, its deliveries are generally faster to South African addresses than Amazon.

When products are in stock, Takealot often delivers within a few business days in cities and major towns. In many instances, it will deliver before the estimated delivery date — sometimes as fast as the next business day.

Amazon.com orders can take weeks to reach your door, as the stock has to be taken from a US warehouse to an international freight company that ships it to South Africa.

Nevertheless, Amazon’s estimated delivery dates mostly assume a worst-case scenario and can also arrive well ahead of schedule.

The one sticking point with Amazon deliveries is that a package can get stuck in customs for days.

Several MyBroadband forum members and readers have reported that their orders often take less than a week to arrive in the country, but stay in customs for days or even weeks.

It is recommended that you contact the shipping company if your tracking details show the package has not moved through customs for several days.

Warranties

The other important factor to consider is the nature of the warranty on the product you are buying.

With Takealot, you typically get a solid warranty from either Takealot, the supplier, or the manufacturer, which means defective products can be repaired or replaced quickly.

When buying from Amazon, you should know that you might have to ship a broken product back at your own cost to get it repaired or replaced under warranty.

A select few manufacturers offer international traveller’s warranties, which may cover the device in South Africa, even if it is bought from overseas.

Now read: How to get your importers code from SARS — save thousands on tech