The promise, hype and expectation of South African eCommerce fulfillment, fuelled by the realisation that online procurement and supply-chain management could potentially trim costs and improve customer relationships, even after 10 years has fallen short.
In 2007, World Wide Worx study of internet shopping, predicted a contribution of at least 20% to the holiday shopping spend and that the trend showed that consumers were beginning to gain confidence in online gift shopping specifically.
Two years later and South Africa has still not perfected the formula nor managed to successfully bring online purchases mainstream. Approximately only half of the current internet users shop online. It is still very much a developing market with statistics predicting that internet usage figures alone are set to grow by a further 13% during 2009, providing some hope that with it, so will online shopping. Although online browsing has increased significantly with consumer's easily performing product price comparisons, most purchases are still taking place offline.
Although it is still a developing market, this year it seems that a new trend is being adopted by internet commerce-potential institutions. It is as if South Africa decided to skip completing the eCommerce cycle and jump straight onto mCommerce. For the South and larger African market mobile commerce would be a step in a potentially lucrative direction as the mobile platform is the most accessible form of internet access on the continent.
But how successful can this channel be if we consider that we've hardly scratched the surface on eCommerce?
Obstacles faced in eCommerce
Up to 2003 the biggest obstacle to eCommerce was the lack of a robust online payment platform and costs involved to create bespoke commerce solutions put many companies off from investing in developing this on their websites. Six years later the complications have finally mostly been ironed out, but the hesitation to leverage these systems still remains.
Bandwidth was another technical barrier, which also mostly lead to shopping carts and payment systems that were in place to time-out, leaving would be purchasers with the fear that their credit card would be doubly charged.
From the design and usability side, commerce websites in South Africa are not up to the commonly accepted Western Standards. When a website is not user-friendly and simple to navigate, drop-off rates are high, which result in the site not generating enough revenue.
Some companies also encountered delivery issues, and with the era of instant gratification for those individuals that were already net savvy, waiting for up to six weeks versus immediate satisfaction of store purchase was no contest.
Although by no means the only obstacles, having learnt from these, how can we make both eCommerce and mCommerce a success, and can we do this jointly?
Development considerations for e+mCommerce
It is hugely important to ensure that a website is initially built correctly. Don't have an add-on wish list for later, unless you are 200% sure that all the ‘wish-list' components will work with the existing website functionality. For example some might develop commerce functionality, but consider mobile commerce functionality as an afterthought. Ideally if the site is created on a XHTML platform, it would not require a full redevelopment at a later stage and could save companies fortunes.
Consult with usability and conversion experts and conduct user-group testing on the platform to ensure that it can cater to both ‘newbies' and ‘techperts'.
Ensuring that your website has a robust and simple ‘shopping cart' will minimise the purchase drop-off rates. One does not need to invest in bespoke carts to achieve this. There are many “off-the-shelf” products that cater to this and won't break the bank. By using “off-the-shelf” products can save up to 35% on maintenance and license fees alone. Commerce software products that have proven functionality include Magento, OSCommerce and Zend Cart.
Achieving success through Mobile Commerce
Mobile Commerce,, or mCommerce, include applications and services that are accessible from internet-enabled mobile devices (cellphones).
Mobile is the most accessible form of internet access on the African continent, therefore products and services in theory have a much wider chance for adoption if they are accessible through this platform.
Achieving success in mCommerce as with eCommerce very much relies on a sound technical structure. Making your website mobile friendly does not necessarily mean that you need to build an entirely separate website primarily for mobile. It is of course ideal to own a .mobi in addition to the .com or .co.za domain extensions indicating that your website is focussed and viewable on a mobile device.
There are dedicated mobi search engines, which can be utilised from both the desktop as well as mobile device. As with websites ensuring the structure is accessible by these search engines will also ensure that you gain increased visibility. XHTML hierarchies have ensured that both desktop and mobile search engines are easily able to read the content and classify it. Also, the website should automatically be enabled to transform itself to the mobile screen if developed in this coding structure.
Understanding mobile devices and their capabilities to render this structure is of vital importance. Ensure that it is compatible with the most prevalent cellphones and that updates for new phones could easily be implemented.
As with most things online, the marketing would be the biggest factor in achieving success. Comprehensive campaigns including press articles, social media and search are the primary channels to use to increase adoption rate.
FormFunction Digital Consultants Pty Ltd is one of the leading digital exploration and implementation companies in South Africa and takes pride as a strategic consulting business first and foremost. Understanding and hands-on experience with various web and social application platforms, successful eCommerce websites deployment in technologies including Magento, OSCommerce and Zend, and experience as one of the first agencies to create an iPhone application make them a natural forerunner in the field of mobile commerce in South Africa.
To understand how your company could potentially benefit from creating an eCommerce or mCommerce presence, contact FormFunction to arrange an objective and informative consulting meeting.
Source: http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/16/36419.html
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