Investors support uAfrica.com growth

The investment comes from global organisation, bidorbuy.com and private South African investor, Andy Higgins, MD of uAfrica.com. Higgins, founder and former MD of bidorbuy.co.za, joined the Jump Shopping team in 2012. The company rebranded as uAfrica.com in order to facilitate a broader focus on all aspects of e-commerce.

"Over the last two years, a substantial portion of locally established online South African e-commerce companies have benefitted from an influx of global investment. This increase is testament to the opportunity the South African market has to offer these investors both from a return perspective and the growth in the number of local skilled experts working on IT and application developments," said Higgins.

Higgins, together with the company's director of technology, Jaco Roux will focus on e-commerce facilities that speak to the local market and meet the local need. "Often international products offer services that are not always applicable to a local audience; we plan to shift the paradigm, as we take international best practices and add relevant localisation to give merchants and consumers the best of both worlds."

Jaco Jonker, CEO of bidorbuy.co.za, points out that the online retail space has become a significant part of South African shopping trends and that online retailers prefer to use more than one channel. "The need to operate or generate sales across multiple web based retail stores or applications will continue to grow, as will the need to manage inventory across these various platforms. We made the business decision to partner with uAfrica.com, in order to help deliver these specialised services, including multiple channels, to online retailers. This is also fundamental to the future e-commerce growth within the bidorbuy channel."