e-Tail IT superstore launches

The site is the brainchild of CEO, Jean-Pierre Schmidtke, who has spent the last eight years in the UK working for one of Europe's largest online technology resellers.

"We are confident that in a short time we will become the leading online provider of IT products to the private and corporate sector throughout South Africa, as well as the sub-Saharan region," he says. "We see our competitive edge being our experience, price, efficient delivery and our ability to distribute into the rest of Africa."

With online retail sales growing more than 35% in 2007 and services like ADSL becoming cheaper and many individuals adopting 3G options from cellphone networks resulting in last year's doubling of SA broadband users, Schmidtke sees huge potential for his company in SA and is expecting turnover to top R43m in the first year of operation.

What's in-store

Schmidtke says that with a product portfolio that at launch includes over 92 different brands of IT hardware and over 143,000 products from the world's leading manufacturers, Click2BuyIT.com is offering competitive prices on thousands of items, from a massive selection of top brands. The product range includes computers, software, peripherals, networking, communications, media, plasma screens, games, films and music, and stationary. In addition, it is offering IT solutions for corporate business including high-end enterprise solutions and equipment.

"We intend growing our product portfolio within a short space of time to include over 600,000 products," he says. "In addition, due to Click2BuyIT's relationships with vendors in the UK, we will also be importing some products that will be available for the first time in SA and will import directly from the UK with full warranties."

PostageOpen day

Schmidtke says that the response from vendors and distributors has been very encouraging. "We are kicking off our R5-million marketing campaign to promote the new site with a launch in Nelson Mandela Square from 30th July to 5th August in collaboration with some of the world's leading brands such as Fujitsu Siemens Computers (who will launch a new small compact notebook), Acer who will each have one of the seven days dedicated to promoting their products, and D-link will be providing wireless internet access free of charge with IP cameras to view Mandela Square."

Security and support

The company is also offering pre- and post-sales support via its team of qualified technicians and customer advisors from its call centre housed at the company's offices in Roodepoort. "Our consultants will be available to offer advice, assistance and support for any products purchased from Click2BuyIT. In addition, our accredited engineers are on hand to install hardware for home and corporate users," Schmidtke adds.

Click2buyit.com has invested millions in the Microsoft Commerce Server solution, enabling it to create a full-featured web business application, while allowing it to integrate its e-commerce solutions within the site infrastructure, ensuring the site is fast and functional and as user friendly as possible.

"We have spent a fortune on backend and warehouse systems, with full analytic capabilities from stock to current sales," he says. "Our systems allow us to periodically refill the inventory in order to keep stock on hand - which means we'll never run out..."

The highest level of security has been adopted. "Our servers are kept in a vault at a local ISP and we have a 256-bit encryption level to ensure customer security. We have also secured website recognition with Veri-Sign and a full extended validation, which means our site is internationally recognised as a secure site," Schmidtke concludes.