South Africa: Makro planning click-and-collect shopping service
Online shopping in SA is less developed than in other countries. Along with delivery and logistics constraints, slow and expensive broadband have inhibited e-commerce.
The click-and-collect concept allows customers to buy online and instead of waiting for an order to be delivered, they can collect it from a store of their choice. The use of lockers was pioneered by Amazon who first installed them in some shopping centres in the UK.
Delivery to a Makro locker entails customers selecting a convenient locker site that meets their needs, after which they receive a text message confirming that the order is ready for collection, and a unique code to identify themselves and gain access to a locker. The lockers are 2.3m x 1.5m in size.
Along with the forecourts, Makro CEO Doug Jones said the group was acquiring access to other sites such as fast-food restaurants, office parks and Makro stores as part of the medium-term online strategy. The plans will be announced by the middle of next year.
Makro launched its e-commerce site in March. New customers account for 29% of total online sales. The average basket size for online purchases is three times that of a store basket and the most popular online items sold are large appliances, multimedia and technology products such as iPads, radios and earphones.
Absa Investments analyst Chris Gilmour said there were two things that differentiated SA in a bad way from the rest of the world when it came to online retailing. "Our pathetic broadband and frankly I don’t think that’s going to improve much in the foreseeable future. And we also have appalling logistics in SA, ie the Post Office. What we’re seeing is a rising ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ from companies — because we don’t have the basics here — something like click and collect has a big future in SA," he said.
Source: bdlive.co.za
