The real cost of festive season downtime
It's 23 December, 5:47 PM. The queue in your store stretches to the entrance. Trolleys overflow with festive groceries, last-minute gifts and emergency purchases. Your staff are moving fast, scanning items, processing payments. Then it happens: the screen freezes. The...
Marketing drives Black Friday sales, but your phones drive customers away
You can’t control your courier, or your payment gateway or a lot of essential elements in your delivery process. Warren Hawkins, MD of Euphoria Telecom Your customers don't care whose fault it is - they just want to know what’s going on and that you are on it. The...
Treat Black Friday as a visibility moment, not a discount race
As the world prepares for another Black Friday (28 November), South African small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have a golden opportunity to stand out from the big brand noise by offering more value-driven, authentic alternatives. This is according to Sudir Sahadeo,...
Don’t let downtime steal your Black Friday sales
As retailers and enterprises across South Africa prepare for the annual Black Friday surge on 28 November, network resilience is once again in sharp focus. For many organisations, the festive trading season is the ultimate stress test, one where downtime can have...
Cautious consumers set the tone for Black Friday 2025
South Africa’s technology and durables (T&D) manufacturers and retailers will face fierce competition for the consumer’s rand during the upcoming Black Friday promotional period, with NIQ South Africa forecasting relatively flat growth in terms of units and...
Vulnerable SA retailers in for brutal peak season
South African retailers face a perfect cybersecurity storm as they gear up for an extended peak season. The busiest time of year will see head offices at their most vulnerable as cyber criminals target overworked staff who are desperate to ensure sales are maximised...
Black Friday payment realities for merchants
Online retail in South Africa is no longer a peripheral activity; it is a structural force in the economy. The market is on track to surpass R130-billion this year, approaching 10% of total retail sales. By Joshua Shimkin, head of growth and marketing at Peach...
AI breaks new ground for the retail industry
AI is a foundational technology in the retail sector. Niel Coetzee, technical director at redPanda Software Deployed to enhance personalisation, operational efficiency and optimise workflows and planning, AI solutions are rapidly becoming practical, enterprise-scale...
SA’s retail revolution demands a cyber resilience reckoning
South Africa's retail landscape stands at a digital crossroads. The sector's increasing transformation, from traditional brick-and-mortar operations to sophisticated omnichannel ecosystems, is unlocking unprecedented opportunities for growth, customer engagement, and...
How under-siege retailers can fight cybercrime and fraud
So far in 2025, South African retailers are facing an unprecedented wave of cybercrime and fraud, as businesses battle a sophisticated and ever-evolving threat landscape. By Chandni Gopal, partner, Aaqilah Nagdee, senior associate, and Precious Maphupha, candidate...
The Black Friday remix: what 2025 will look like
In 2024, Black Friday stopped being an imported promo day in South Africa and started dictating terms. It was a supercharged, concentrated surge of shopping that reset expectations and rewired retail playbooks. By Rory Bosman, chief sales and marketing officer at...
Township entrepreneurs turn to fintechs to bridge the digital payments divide
South Africa’s informal economy has for long been largely cash-based. This is changing with spaza shop owners leading the way when it comes to the adoption of digital payments. By Annelene Dippenaar, chief business officer at Shop2Shop While there are still hurdles to...