The Future Of e-Commerce In South Africa

The Future of eCommerce in SA

Ramon Thomas

Why People Shop on the Web

Convenience and ease of use

Shoppers only buy 5% of the time

e-Commerce is International

eCommerce Examples

Amazon.com

eBay.com

iTunes

Yahoo!

Google

Amazon Marketplace ( i.e:Third-party Marketplace ) is Amazon.com's fixed-price online marketplace that allows sellers to survey their goods alongside Amazon's offerings. Buyers can buy new and used items sold directly by a third party through Amazon.com using Amazon Marketplace. This concept is similar to eBay's successful half.com. This sales strategy and program has been very profitable for Amazon.com, with a commission rate of 6 to 15 percent of the sale price, a $0.99 per-transaction fee, as well as a variable closing fee. Users can leave feedback on transactions, similar to eBay's feedback system, except that Amazon uses a five star rating system instead of just positive, neutral, or negative. Any feedback less than four stars will negatively affect the seller's rating. It is important to note that this rating system is different from Amazon's regular book rating system - while their book rating system should be used to vote on the content of the book, the quality of the publication, the individual's opinion of the book, or any number of other factors, the Amazon Marketplace rating system should only be used to describe the quality of the transaction and whether the product meets the criteria in the seller's listing. Negative feedback, for instance, because a book is old and expensive, affects the seller's feedback rating negatively, and causes other buyers to be less likely to purchase from that seller. Another big difference in the Amazon vs. eBay feedback is reciprocity. Amazon has a one way street. The seller is always judged for the feedback left but the seller is powerless to effect the feedback of the buyer because the buyers feedback is not included in any metric Amazon uses. If a buyer on eBay has bad feedback you can block them but on Amazon you have to accept a sale from a bad feedback customer. Without this measure, customers who feel for any reason to leave a bad feedback can and do. Check it out for yourself. Take a Powerseller on eBay and see if they are selling on Amazon you will see similar items but feedback will be at least 5% off on Amazon what it is on eBay.

The Numbers

1.1 billion Internet users (4 million)‏

2.5 billion Cellphone users (32 million)‏

100 million websites

# Websites each year since the Web's founding.

Blogosphere

Cluetrain

"A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies."