Buy now pay later in SA will be a R2bn market by December

Hundreds of thousands of South Africans are paying for their goods by using buy now pay later (BNPL) which is growing 10% to 15% per month and recorded a 50% hike from the first to the second quarter of 2022. According to Payflex, South Africa’s largest BNPL...

Is your retail business ready for the Amazon effect?

With Amazon reportedly set to launch in South Africa next year, forward-thinking retailers are starting to position themselves to defend and extend their share of the R30-billion per year retail e-commerce market. Those that are agile and innovative enough will...

What merchants and consumers need to know about RMS

When South Africa became the first country in the world to launch Authenticated Collections (Debicheck), replacing EDO (AEDO & NAEDO) with DebiCheck in 2021, consumers and merchants breathed a collective sigh of relief. Now Registered Mandate Services (RMS)...

Retailers brace for the post-pandemic landscape

There is little doubt that the pandemic has transformed the retail landscape for good, with a recent Flux Trends report highlighting that worldwide e-commerce sales will exceed $5-trillion for the first time this year, accounting for more than a fifth of overall...

How to do Black Friday better than the e-commerce giants

Black Friday shopping mania has been with Mzansi for over 10 years now, writes James Bayhack, sub-Saharan Africa director at CM.com. Online retail giant Takealot launched its first Black Friday sale in 2011, generating a turnover of R1-million. Seven years later,...

Retailers using AI should be aware of privacy and cybercrime issues

Artificial intelligence (AI) is being deployed to help shoppers make better choices, but retailers must be aware of their obligations under personal privacy and cyber crimes laws. By Wendy Tembedza, partner at Webber Wentzel The acceleration of the fourth industrial...