{"id":539355,"date":"2024-06-04T07:03:44","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T05:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=539355"},"modified":"2024-06-05T21:44:10","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T19:44:10","slug":"amazon-south-africas-big-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/enterprise\/539355-amazon-south-africas-big-problem.html","title":{"rendered":"Amazon South Africa’s big problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazon’s South African online marketplace has plummeted in popularity since launching around a month ago.<\/p>\n

Google Trends data<\/a> for “Amazon.co.za”, “Amazon South Africa”, and “Amazon” show that online searches for the marketplace skyrocketed at launch.<\/p>\n

Queries jumped from single digits in the week up to Monday, 6 May 2024.<\/p>\n

At launch on Tuesday, 7 May 2024, searches skyrocketed into the triple digits.<\/p>\n

However, they quickly cooled down the next day and continued to decline over the following week.<\/p>\n

By Saturday, 11 May 2024, search traffic for the three Amazon-related phrases was around where it had been before the launch.<\/p>\n

Apart from a small jump on 15 May 2024, search traffic has remained low.<\/p>\n

It should be expected that a launch will draw unusually high traffic and that interest will subside in the following days.<\/p>\n

However, Amazon’s average daily search traffic is struggling against its main local rival \u2014 Takealot.<\/p>\n

The graph and table below show how Google searches for Amazon.co.za, Amazon South Africa, and Amazon compared with Takealot in the past month.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Amazon vs Takealot <\/strong><\/span>
\nAverage daily Google searches in South Africa<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Search phrase<\/strong><\/td>\nAverage searches per day from 2 May 2024 to 2 June 2024<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Amazon<\/td>\n23<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Amazon.co.za<\/td>\n1<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Amazon South Africa<\/td>\n10<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Takealot<\/td>\n34<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

There could be several reasons for Amazon’s quick plunge in local popularity.<\/p>\n

Many people were disappointed at the lacklustre selection of products available on the marketplace at launch.<\/p>\n

It offered none of Amazon’s own popular products, such as its TVs, Ring security devices, or Kindle e-book readers.<\/p>\n

Others were surprised to find that Amazon.co.za’s prices were often identical or similar to Takealot’s.<\/p>\n

MyBroadband compared<\/a> the prices of various tech products from the two stores and found they were largely aligned.<\/p>\n

In many cases, the same resellers were offering products on both platforms at the same prices.<\/p>\n

Another pricing comparison<\/a> showed that many tech products were cheaper on Amazon’s US marketplace than in South Africa, even with all import taxes and shipping included.<\/p>\n

In addition, Amazon.co.za launched without support for the company’s highly popular Prime subscription service, which offers same-day and next-day delivery perks bundled with streaming, gaming, and e-book services.<\/p>\n

Taking on a well-established market<\/h2>\n

Several seasoned e-commerce experts in South Africa have pointed out that South Africans should not expect Amazon.co.za to completely upstage the market.<\/p>\n

Bob Group CEO Andy Higgins previously told MyBroadband<\/a> that Amazon would have an uphill battle against incumbents and that its local success was not guaranteed.<\/p>\n

Higgins said although Amazon’s brand already gave it a huge advantage, merchants and shoppers should not expect the company to perform miracles, particularly when it comes to fulfilment and pricing.<\/p>\n

“I believe local skills and expertise will outperform international resources, which means it will be difficult for Amazon to beat Takealot,” he said.<\/p>\n

MyBroadband tested Amazon.co.za on launch day and was impressed by its quick and efficient service.<\/p>\n

We ordered a USB thumb drive with same-day delivery early in the morning, and it arrived at our office at 14:53.<\/p>\n

However, the same item ordered from Takealot at the same time arrived less than an hour later.<\/p>\n

While Amazon had a slightly better price on the product itself, both platforms charged the same amounts for same-day delivery.<\/p>\n

Takealot, Game, and Makro have proven themselves to be generally reliable and have often delivered well within their promised timeframes in our recent tests.<\/p>\n

Takealot, in particular, appeared to be well prepared for Amazon’s local entry, launching its own delivery subscription service<\/a> just two days after Amazon.co.za’s debut.<\/p>\n

TakealotMore offers shoppers similar same-day and next-day delivery perks on Takealot.com as Amazon Prime does for its customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google Trends data shows that Amazon.co.za’s popularity has largely worn off since it launched around a month ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":535455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57364],"tags":[723,90066,28372,11165,1163,35,10412,995],"class_list":["post-539355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-enterprise","tag-amazon","tag-amazon-co-za","tag-andy-higgins","tag-e-commerce","tag-ecommerce","tag-headline","tag-online-shopping","tag-takealot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}