The outstanding effort of Ecommerce in SA - Post Covid 19

I started working in E-commerce in 2011, Ecommerce was something that wasn't really heard of or understood. You had your big players such as the airlines that you could book tickets and pay online for. With me being in sales finding an online store with decent enough volumes was very hard to come by. There was an effort by large companies with walk in stores to go online, however it was something that was a nice to have, an option for those who wanted to shop online.

My father would still go to the bank and fill out a deposit slip to transfer money, how do you change such a mentality of a older generation to enter their credit card details on a website or even have internet banking. I knew that to change that generation, it would have to take something massive.

If you do the things the same way, you've always done them, you will get the same outcomes you have always gotten. You have to do things differently.

As the years went by, there was a definite uptake to ecommerce in SA. There was launch after launch of new ways to pay, different payment tender types and new and better websites. I left the industry for a bit and played in the ATM space for 2 years. This not being my scene, I came back to ecommerce in 2020. Wow, I didn't expect what I was walking back into to.

Introducing Covid 19.

Wow, what a crazy ride these last two years have been, loosing people we love to this dreadful disease. Being held captive in our homes, our whole life as we knew it, changed. Again, a crazy ride. I always believed that something big would need to happen in order for Ecommerce to be a global level. Everything we knew had changed - we couldn't leave the house unless it was for necessities, people were forced to change their outlook and shop online.

One afternoon, when we were being held captative, I ordered online from an app called #Quench They called me from Woolies to check for replacement goodies, It absolutely blew my mind. Then Checkers #sixty60 was launched - what an absolutely incredible app. Checkers managed to enter a completely different LSM and deliver in 60mins. Think of the time where my Dad was going to bank to make deposits and now look at having convenience at your finger tips. Small business's have been launched, side hustles and brick n mortar stores taking the plunge. People were now taking to online as a very large % of the population was left unemployed. Being back in the industry now, It is a completely different pace, banks are overloaded with merchant applications.

The industry is growing at a rapid pace right in front of our eyes.

The payment options that are available to people now, are endless. Who would have thought we would be in a time where credit can be granted in real time. #Fasta is a great example of this, at your checkout you can hit Fasta to pay, TrueID comes up and in real time you can apply for credit in the same checkout session. I saw a demo take place and I had to watch it over and over again until I could come to terms with the massive change in peoples mindset. Is there anything at this point that you cannot buy online? The google pages run for days where as you were lucky to find more than 2 pages of online stores when searching on google a few years back.

Covid has taught us to be resilient, be open minded and do things we would have never done before. It has taken an industry to great heights! For those that were always wanting an online store - Now is your time to take that step, you will adapt pretty easily.

Well done to each and every player in the ecommerce industry for opening up the right channels for the rest of SA, and thank you to Covid for being the instigator.

I cannot wait to see what the future has instore for us!