Shoppers to splurge on net

A survey by online store Kalahari.net on social networking site Facebook showed that 87% of South Africans connected to the web are planning to do at least some of their Christmas shopping online this year.

Kalahari's customer experience general manager, Gary Novitzkas, said the figures were in line with a "research report released by Verdict Research, which shows that Christmas 2010 in the UK will be the best for retailers since 2007, with online shopping taking the lion's share".

"Online sales on Kalahari.net have increased incrementally throughout the year and we expect a 20% to 25% increase in sales on the site this year from 2009."

Many customers say they plan to spend between 10% and 25% of their December salaries on gifts.

Almost half of those who fall into the 25% category say they hope to receive gadgets for Christmas, including digital cameras, eReaders, cellphones and computers.

The gadget that is highest on the customers' wish lists, at 34%, is the latest AppleiPhone4 (R11399). Next, at 21%, is the eReader (R1129), followed by the Apple iPad (up to R9500), a touch-screen tablet computer.

Source: The Times