South Africa, March 22 -- Even though South Africa saw a 25% increase in online retail over the last 12 months we need to grow e-commerce beyond the 2% of total retail sales that it currently occupies. And mobile should be the way to do that, according to Yolande Steyn, an independent consultant with experience working at Takealot and FNB.
Speaking at the fifth eCommerce Africa conference in Cape Town this week, Steyn shared that last year alone, 13,5 million smartphones were shipped in South Africa. Fifty-one percent of all phones in the local market now are smartphones, and 70% of all unique browsers are coming from a mobile source.
"More and more we need to understand that our interactions with customers are not happening on fancy MacB...