South Africa's e-commerce landscape has arrived at an important juncture. The explosive growth observed during the pandemic years has slowed down somewhat and consumer spending power has faltered amid low economic growth and a global cost of living crisis. At the same...

Rapid growth in online shopping across most demographics creates a compelling opportunity for agile retailers to expand into new markets, build customer loyalty and grow their revenues. It also means that they will face more competition from shops outside their...

In the dynamic and ever-changing retail landscape, ongoing transformation is a strategic necessity to cater to the primary reality that 'the customer is king' - retailers must be adaptive to change in order to meet new customer demands. By Henry Myburgh, strategic key...

The digitalisation of the modern world economy is being driven rapidly by a shift from traditional payment methods. Fatima Khota, business unit manager of Rectron's point-of-sale (PoS) division, looks at how retailers in the formal and informal sector are adopting...

South African retailers that go completely cashless potentially risk excluding large portions of their customer base. With nine out of 10 transactions in South Africa still made in cash, removing this option limits customer choice in payment methods. That's according...

As retailers grow into mid-market size and beyond, the complexity and cost of manually reconciling payments increases almost exponentially because there are hundreds of thousands, if not more, transactions a day. By Graham Bradford, senior product manager at Ecentric...

With the International Monetary Fund forecasting that South African GDP will grow only 1% this year against a backdrop of load shedding and logistics disruptions, retailers will need to focus on diversification into new sectors as well as expanding market share at the...

For years, the industry has advocated for the benefits offered by business intelligence (BI), but many retailers are still struggling to get the most out of their data. As retail continues to evolve in a rapidly digitising world, companies are looking for different...

In the span of a year, the landscape of artificial intelligence has undergone a remarkable transformation. Until late 2022, few people outside of cutting-edge artificial intelligence had heard of large language models (LLMs) or generative AI (GenAI). By Sheetal Patel,...

Once upon a time (literally like last week) a shopper popped in for a quick pre-holiday shop. Welcomed by a bot that offered personalised suggestions based on previous purchases - a hassle free push to make their experience "more than". Drawn into the clothing...