Christmas shoppers may be keen to avoid the shops this year, but are there any gifts available on the Internet? Ann Eveleth reports
South African Christmas surfers on the Net are likely to be disappointed again this year, with few options for local shopping as retailers take a cautious approach to virtual marketing.
Apart from a free Internet Christmas Card service offered by SA Online this year, the local Web shows few signs of anticipating the biggest shopping season of the year. This in spite of predictions that other online retailers, particularly in the United States, are poised for a good showing this year as pundits estimate more and more shoppers are putting their money where their mouse is.
Several South African sites identified by PCReview eight months ago appear to have closed shop during the interim period, and the only local online mall listed in the Internet Solution’s “Best of the Web” shopping mall directory – RGO Shopping Mall – is “busy redecorating”, according to the message that greets potential buyers at the site.
Other erstwhile South African sites that were unavailable this week included the Adult Emporium, InfoMall’s Curio Shop, Digital’s Cape Town-based music store and Moonbags.
Nature by Design’s main page offered no options or links to buy its former range of leather jackets, and the Gauteng Cigar Factory is still not online for the primary purposes of active cigar aficionados – buying cigars. The site does, however, offer a link to amazon.com’s bookstore with more than a dozen books about cigars, offering a gift-giving alternative.
While these glitches in the local end of the global cybermarket suggest it will be a while before embattled suburbanites can avoid the physical shopping malls altogether – short of making their purchases overseas, that is – it is possible to purchase a range of items from the remaining sites, some of which have improved in recent months.
SA Curios has moved to a new site named SA Arts and Crafts. Although the slow pace of the site may discourage the less intrepid virtual consumer, the growing product range is inspiring. While five of the site’s eight categories are still “under construction”, the African, Art and Interior malls offer a growing selection.
Interior, for example, sells chairs, cushions, aprons, wall hangings, tablecloths, serviettes and kitchen towels, while Art offers shoppers a choice of 20 local paintings.
Another promising holiday shopping site can be found at wine.co.za, where shoppers can hunt for a specific vintage or simply travel through the virtual vineyards, basket in hand, to their heart’s content.
The online music market has suffered some set-backs – such as Digital’s disappearance and King CD’s inability to trade in its dance music speciality. But, while sites like Madiba Music are still offline, there is now a link to “Stephen and Alan’s new Amuzine”.
Among the interesting gift ideas available in Amuzine’s top 10 linked sites are the chance to win “the wonderbra of your dreams” by adding to an interactive story. Hmm.
Amuzine also links shoppers to the best option for South African online music lovers – the One World Online CD Store. The store specialises in South African music, which is divided into 38 categories ranging from alternative and boeremusiek to township, traditional and urban dance music. Some of these local CDs are a steal at R29, although CDs on the African continent, international and latest releases categories go for between R39 and R99.
The site also has a link to local record label Tequila Records, which offers the surfer with appropriate technology access to downloadable sound files.
Also through Amuzine, shoppers can reach local booksellers Struik Books and Clarke’s Bookshop. While these sites, with only a couple dozen of volumes on offer, are a far cry from amazon.com – the world’s biggest bookstore – their local flavour is commendable.
The Two Ocean’s Web site also has an interesting collection of tenants, including the above two booksellers. It is still possible to purchase clothing, badges and other ill-fated Olympic collectables from the 2004 Bid Shop, while the Mayibuye CD-Rom Publications site offers a concise history of the struggle against apartheid in 10 volumes for R205.
Another Two Oceans tenant is Tekweni Videos, which offers a small selection of local nature and culture videos for R85 to R142, mainly targeting overseas buyers.
Veld Focus Clothing, also on the Two Oceans site, was the only local online clothing retailers the Mail & Guardian could find, but its selection is limited to “bushwear and accessories from Africa”.
A local retail trailblazer, Veld – the online service of a Roodepoort-based factory shop – wins high points for marketing. Promising local delivery within 14 days (overseas within three weeks), a chance to win a trip for two to Mala Mala, and links to Johannesburg-based agricultural distributors Agrinet, it is surprising that the site has drawn only about 2 040 hits. Perhaps word got around in the local market that the Veldfocus Biltong link has closed.
While stats like this, and the paltry 4 587 hits at the Great African Emporium – a promising but still limited mall with a shopping-cart system – in the past year, suggest South Africa’s estimated 500 000 active Net users have been slow to venture into the local Net market, the signs of change are already on the African horizon.
According to Internet Solution, the country’s largest Internet service provider to corporate users, and Electric Toaster, an innovative corporate site billing itself as “the South African online marketing and media soup”, the local Net consumer market is on par with the global user profile – setting local online shopping in line for a significant growth spurt in the near future.
While the local Net has only been up and running for about five years, recent developments, such as an Internet Solution’s safe online billing partnership with cellphone network MTN, suggest local online service providers are already taking steps to iron out some of the kinks – like fear of giving online credit information – blamed for initially slowing the growth of online shopping in the US.