{"id":650410,"date":"2026-05-28T16:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T14:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=650410"},"modified":"2026-05-28T16:20:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T14:20:59","slug":"amazon-taking-the-fight-to-takealot-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business\/650410-amazon-taking-the-fight-to-takealot-in-south-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"Amazon taking the fight to Takealot in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Amazon’s South African e-commerce marketplace has experienced substantial growth since its launch two years ago, carving out a comfortable spot in a market dominated by Takealot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon has not shared specific revenues, profit, or order volume figures in South Africa, but World Wide Worx<\/a>‘s 2025 Online Retail Report found its local marketplace launch drew many more locals to the store. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A survey conducted by Ask Africa for the report found that 12.3% of South Africans had shopped on Amazon.com in 2024, the year in which it launched locally, compared to 6.4% in 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on Amazon.co.za order delivery data extracted by a MyBroadband Forum member, orders fulfilled by its biggest courier partner grew substantially month-on-month until at least October 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The forum estimated that Amazon.co.za was processing nearly half a million orders per month at that point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a recent interview on What’s Next with Aki Anastasiou<\/a>, Amazon Sub-Saharan Africa managing director Robert Koen said the marketplace also had a “knockout” fourth quarter in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koen said that momentum was carried over to the first quarter of 2026. However, he acknowledged that Amazon was still early in its journey in South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’re listening carefully to our customers, and we’re going to continue to fine-tune the offering and make sure we’re really giving South Africans what they want and what they deserve,” Koen said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One area of focus has been expanding Amazon.co.za’s product range, which Koen said was growing by thousands of new products every week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another was ensuring that packages were delivered within the promised timeframe, even within a particular window of a few hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koen said that Amazon was getting great feedback from South African customers about its pricing and service delivery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One noteworthy observation has been its growth outside the country’s main urban hubs. “Whether it’s Port Nolloth, Beitbridge, or the middle of rural KwaZulu-Natal, we’ve got a big customer base,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon has also boosted local businesses selling on its marketplace, including small firms like Romtech, whose presence on the store supercharged its performance<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Fulfilment by Amazon, Romtech’s units sold surged\u00a06,878% and sales 4,872% over a 12-month period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Romtech founder Jacques Keth said Amazon demonstrated “genuine care” about its marketplace sellers and was eager to build a strong, mutually beneficial, and lasting relationship with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tapping into local courier power<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Koen lending a hand on a delivery run with The Courier Guy. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Koen told Anastasiou his vision for Amazon.co.za is to be South Africa’s most loved and trusted online store. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’ve arrived when a gogo in rural KwaZulu-Natal will order something and say, ‘Hey, we really trust Amazon because we know they get us, we love the experience, we know we can trust Amazon,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many industry experts anticipated Amazon would struggle to compete with the likes of Takealot and other mature e-commerce players, especially when it came to logistics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the retailer had a fairly underwhelming debut with a limited product range and pricing similar to Takealot, its delivery turnarounds were generally excellent from the get-go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Takealot had years to grow its logistics capability in South Africa. Its ability to deliver in-stock products nearly anywhere in South Africa in one to three days is a major motivator for customers to check out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Amazon to establish a similar in-house capability within a short period would have required a substantial amount of capital. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, it partnered with two well-established courier companies in South Africa \u2014 The Courier Guy and DPD Laser \u2014 to fulfill its last-mile deliveries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MyBroadband staff have placed numerous orders on the marketplace over the last two years and repeatedly found that its delivery turnarounds were exceptional. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One recent example was a customer in Pretoria who ordered two items on a Saturday evening and received both within about a day and a half using standard shipping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While one item was in stock at Amazon’s warehouse in Johannesburg, the other was only available in Cape Town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of putting both items in the same order, Amazon split them over two deliveries \u2014 one on Sunday morning and the other on Monday morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Takealot typically requires users to spend extra for weekend deliveries, except if they subscribe to its TakealotMore service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon also has a much larger network of package collection points, with more than 4,000 Pargo points and The Courier Guy lockers across the country, compared to Takealot’s 140-odd locations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While it has kept its performance a closely-guarded secret, there are many indications from third parties that Amazon.co.za is experiencing impressive growth and is becoming a more serious challenger to Takealot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":619371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[5224,723,90066,64311,99035,104374,10412,51703,90068,85001,995,60931,65345,2024],"class_list":["post-650410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-aki-anastasiou","tag-amazon","tag-amazon-co-za","tag-dpd-laser","tag-e-commerce-marketplaces","tag-jacque-keth","tag-online-shopping","tag-online-stores","tag-robert-koen","tag-romtech","tag-takealot","tag-the-courier-guy","tag-whats-next","tag-world-wide-worx"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650410"}],"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=650410"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650594,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650410\/revisions\/650594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}