"South Africa is following the international trend with regards to mobile shopping," says the CEO of kalahari.com, Caren Genthner-Kappesz. "The fear previously associated with mobile shopping has decreased significantly over the past year - 48% of kalahari.com customers, compared to 32% in 2013, said that shopping on their smartphones was safer than making a purchase in a mall."
"South Africans are discovering the ease and accessibility of shopping on their mobile phones and tablets," says Genthner-Kappesz. "Just as people like to compare similar items in different shops in the mall, kalahari.com shoppers are using their mobile devices to browse items and compare prices."
The survey points towards a growing trend of mobile users doing online price comparisons with things they're seeing on the shelf and using their phones to find cheaper alternatives online - 59% percent do in-store price comparisons and 42% look for online alternatives while in store.
"The survey findings are supported by the upward trend in traffic to our mobile site platforms," Gethner-Kappesz said. "Mobile traffic to our site is quadrupling year on year."
South Africans still identify entertainment as the primary application that they use their tablets for. But, once we're done playing Candy Crush Saga, 68% of us turn to shopping online. This behavioural trend has remained fairly consistent year on year, with 67% of South Africans claiming to use their tablets for shopping in 2013.
"What's interesting though that this shopping behaviour seems to be moving from traditional mobi sites and onto mobile apps. Shopping Apps are regularly ranking in the top 10 downloads lists and we've seen a 84% increase in downloads of our own shopping app in the last three months. This could also contribute to the increased confidence in shopping through mobile devices. In 2013 only 5% believed that shopping on their device was safer than on their PC, but in 2014 this has increased to 13%. Likewise, in 2013 when 32% believed that shopping on their device was safer than shopping in the mall, this has increased to 43% in 2014."
Now in its fifth year, the survey has become an excellent indicator of emerging trends in South Africa's e-commerce retail space. "Changes in e-commerce are taking place at a rapid pace, if the findings from the survey are anything to go by, we are entering into a really exciting phase in mobile and tablet retail spend. We have a much greater consumer confidence and are excited by the opportunities that this presents us with," Gethner-Kappesz said.
Number crunching - what the survey revealed:
