South African online shopping complaints

South Africa’s Consumer Goods and Services Ombudsman (CGSO) has released its annual report for the year ended 31 March 2024, revealing that it received more complaints about online shopping than any other sector.

Its data shows that online transaction complaints accounted for 26% of all complaints the CGSO received between 1 March 2023 and 29 February 2024. The CGSO received 1,714 e-commerce-related complaints.

However, it should be noted that this is a marked decline from the prior year, when online shopping problems comprised 34% of all complaints the CGSO received.

“Since the advent of the Covid-induced lockdown in 2020, e-commerce has accounted for the most significant number of complaints per sector. This year was no different, although the volume of complaints relative to other sectors fell from 34% in the prior period to 26%,” it said.

“As in the previous three years, the most common consumer complaints related to delivery issues, defective goods, and the cancellation of agreements.”

Ombudsman Liaquat (Lee) Soobrathi noted that 2023/24 was the fourth consecutive year in which online transactions accounted for the highest proportion of complaints logged with the CGSO.

“This is despite e-commerce only making up about five per cent of total retail sales in South Africa,” he added.

Specifically, most complaints related to:

• Retailers failing to deliver goods on time;
• Goods becoming defective within six months;
• Poor service while trying to resolve complaints.

It noted that the reduction in complaints in the e-commerce sector year-on-year could be due to improvements from e-commerce vendors, shoppers returning to physical stores, or customers getting support elsewhere.

“The electrical appliance and the telecoms and satellite services sector retained their second and third spots, respectively,” the CGSO said.

To this end, issues with electrical appliance manufacturers contributed 18% of complaints in 2023/24, while complaints in the telecoms and satellite sector made up 16% of complaints.

The CGSO also received a relatively high number of complaints relating to furniture retailers at 14%.

The total number of complaints in all other listed sectors, including clothing retail, grocery retail, fitness, travel, building, timeshare, security, and accommodation, was far lower.

The contributions from these sectors range from 1% to 6%.

The CGSO noted that of the 7,838 complaints it received in the 2023/24 financial year, it was forced to close 2,302, or 29.4%.

“During the period under review, 60% (4,720) of the 7,838 cases resolved resulted in a favourable outcome for complainants, compared to 55% in the previous year,” it added.

“Of these, 38% (2,993) were fully in favour of the consumer, and 14% (1,139) were resolved directly between supplier and complainant within the first 15 business days.”

It said it assisted in 417 cases, while the ombud’s office found partially in favour of 126 cases.

“When calculating the outcome as a percentage of all cases, we exclude cases that were closed because we were unable to proceed (2,302),” it added.

Reasons as to why these matters were closed include:

• They were outside of the CGSO’s jurisdiction
• The complaint was withdrawn, or the complainant failed to cooperate
• The CGSO was incapable of proceeding further
• The complaint was resolved without the CGSO’s intervention
• The matter had prescribed or been duplicated
• The matter hadn’t been referred to the supplier

The table below shows the contribution of complaints from each sector during the 2023/24 financial year.

Sector	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24
Online transactions	25.00%	34.00%	26.00%
Appliance manufacturers and retailers	14.00%	15.00%	18.00%
Satellite & Telecommunications	17.00%	14.00%	16.00%
Furniture retail	12.00%	11.00%	14.00%
Clothing retail	7.00%	4.00%	6.00%
Groceries	4.00%	4.00%	5.00%
Fitness	4.00%	4.00%	5.00%
Travel services	4.00%	5.00%	4.00%
Building sector	6.00%	5.00%	3.00%
Timeshare	1.00%	1.00%	1.00%
Security & Tracking	2.00%	1.00%	1.00%
Accommodation	2.00%	1.00%	1.00%
Weddings	1.00%	1.00%	0.00%