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.<\/p>\n
Industry sources have told MyBroadband that Amazon is planning to launch a marketplace in South Africa<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Its plan to roll out in South Africa and Nigeria is reportedly codenamed “Project Fela”.<\/p>\n Amazon will reportedly launch its Prime service in South Africa shortly after its marketplace becomes available.<\/p>\n However, until Amazon launches in the country, South Africans will have to order directly from the US store and pay customs and shipping costs.<\/p>\n Of ten items compared, Takealot is cheaper for three products, while importing the seven others from Amazon in the US is more affordable.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n However, Amazon offers better prices on a range of other tech products.<\/p>\n Ordering a GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card with 12GB of memory through Amazon will save you over R10,000.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Amazon also offers Bang & Olufsen H95 headphones for a total cost of R16,931 \u2014 R2,068 less than Takealots price tag of R18,999.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n However, there is a workaround for items that aren’t available to ship directly to South Africa.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n MyUS’s services are based on order weight, starting at $16.99 (R276) for items that weigh less than 1lb (540g).<\/p>\n The pricing of ten tech items, available from both Takealot and Amazon, are compared in the table below.<\/p>\n